THE HIJAZ

MALIK R. DAHLAN

The Hijaz
The First Islamic State

1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Malik Dahlan.
Title: The Hijaz: The First Islamic State / Malik Dahlan.
Description: Oxford [UK]; New York: Oxford University Press, [2018]

ISBN 9780190909727 (print)

ISBN 9780190934798 (updf)
ISBN 9780190935016 (epub)
 To King Salman,
who said:
‘If you read the history of a thousand years... you have the experience
of a thousand years...’
 CONTENTS

Chronology xi
Acknowledgements xix
Preface xxi

Introduction 1

PART I
STATEHOOD: PRE-MODERN
1.  Idealized Statehood 33
The Birth and Evolution of Statehood from The Hijaz 35
The Dilemma of Successorship and the State: Birth of the Caliphate 42
The Jurisprudence of the State: Shari’a and the Objectives of
 Statecraft 45
Political–Economic Evolution of the State 47
2. International Order and the Nation-State 51
TheWestphalian Sovereign State 51
Islamic Public Interest and the Dawla 54
Islamic Statehood and Nationalism 56
Orientalism and the Nation-State 57
The Nation-State in Islamic Reform Scholarship 58
The State and the Mandate of the Jurist 59
Grotian Moment? 61
International Treaties in Islam 62
The Caliphate as International Cooperation 65

vii
 CONTENTS
PART II
SELF-DETERMINATION: MODERN
3. Arab Self-Determination and the Rise of the Modern State 71
Roots of Arab Nationalism:The Arab Revolt 74
The British Alliance with the Arab Nationalist Movement 77
The King of The Hijaz Declares Independence 79
French and German Outlook on Arab Statehood 82
Self-Determination in the Era of the League of Nations 84
The Mandate System and its Legal Challenges 86
Arab Representation at the Paris Peace Conference 90
San Remo 94
The Collapse of the Hijazi–British Relationship 95
4. Hijazi Self-Determination and the New International System 99
Historical Context: Invasion, Conquest, and the Absorption of the
  State of Hijaz 99
The Taif Massacre 101
The Birth of Hijazi Nationalism:The Hijaz National Party 105
‘Hijaz is for Hijazis’: Saving Statehood and the Promise of
Self-Governance 108
Imam Ibn Saud’s Correspondence with The Hijaz and the Islamic
 World 111
The Kingdom of Hijaz and Najd 113
Challenges to Ibn Saud’s Rule over The Hijaz 116
The Hijaz Liberation Movement 118
British–Saudi Repression of The Hijaz Liberation Party 121
Unification: Arabian Kingdom vs.The Hijaz 123
The Status of The Hijaz as a Sovereign State and as a Signatory
  to the Covenant of the League of Nations 125
Non-Recognition and its Application to The Hijaz 128
5. Islamic Self-Determination and the International Legal System 131
The Fall of the Caliphate and the Triumph ofWahhabism 133
Bartering the Caliphate:The Kemalists and Sharif Hussein 135
The Fall of the Caliphate and the Islamic Diplomatic Conferences
 (1924–1932) 137
Islamic Jurisprudence and the Caliphate 144
Caliphate and Muslim Unity 150

viii
 CONTENTS
6. International Law and its Impact on The Hijaz 155
The Legal Background 157
The 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States 158
The Territorial Principle 159
Could The Hijaz Secede from the Saudi State? 161
The ‘Self-Determination Trap’ 170
The Involuntary Extinction of States vs. their Creation 172
The Right to Secession by Agreement: Czechoslovakia and Quebec 173
Lessons from Scotland 175
Escaping the Self-Determination Trap in the Case of Hijaz 177
Internal Self-Determination 181
Autonomy 183
Self-Determination Spectrum Disorder 189

PART III
PRESENT AND FUTURE
7.  Geopolitical Challenges: Ideology and Statehood 207
A Region at the Crossroads 207
Arab Statehood after the Second World War: Decolonization, Mandates,
  and Arab Disorganization 215
The Second World War and its Aftermath: Paving the way for
Decolonization and the Evolution of Statehood 216
The Failure of a System and the Birth of a Better: From the League
  of Nations to the UN 217
From Mandates, Colonies, and Protectorates to Decolonization 218
The 1950s and 1960s: From Anti-Colonialism and Anti-Imperialism
  to Ba’athism and Nasserism 219
What Became of the ‘Arab East’ 227
Decolonized Liberal Monarchies 231
Statehood and the Pursuit of Secularism 233
The Re-emergence of Islam 241
Above Statehood:The First Efforts at Regionalism 246
The Superpowers and the Cold War 254
The SovietWar in Afghanistan:The Mujahideen 257
The Rise of the Taliban 263
Al-Qaida: Postmodernism 269

ix
 CONTENTS
Neo-Medievalism: DA’ISH and theViolent Bid for a
  (Terrorist) ‘Islamic State’ 274
8. The Ideological Drivers of Submerged Statehood in the
  Afterlife of The Hijaz 279
Negative and Positive Islamic Space 279
Wahhabism: Ideological Prototypes and Influences 283
Islamic Revivalism: Sunna and Government 298
Revolutionary Shi’ism: Iran 308
Neo-Medievalism:Terror and the Forceful State 322
Islamic Centrism: A New Pan-Islamic Counter-Effort 331
9. The Reluctant Hijaz: A Moment For Pause, Reflection, and
Legitimate Policy Reset 339
Positive Space: Integrating the Rebirth of Islamic Governance 340
The Hijaz: an Integrative Political Solution? 355
Integration in lieu of Broken Arab Statehood 362
Conclusion 375
The Afterlife of The Hijaz and the Right to Self-Determination 377
Finding the lost Space 381
Inclusive Statehood 384
Epilogue 391
Notes 393
Select Bibliography 491
Index 517

x
 CHRONOLOGY

Pre-Modern Chronology
570 The Prophet Mohammad is born into the
tribe of the Quraysh in Makkah.
575 Mohammad is orphaned by the death of
his parents.
594 Mohammad serves Lady Khadija as a cara-
van agent. The following year they are
married, and eventually have six children,
of whom four daughters survive.
610 Mohammad falls into a trance on Mount
Hira and receives his first message from
God, recited to him by the Angel Gabriel.
622 After being persecuted in Makkah,
Mohammad and his followers flee to
Yathrib, later called Medina, the City of
the Prophet.
624 The battle of Badr is fought between
Mohammad’s followers and a Makkan
army. Mohammad’s forces are victorious.
628 Mohammad and 1,600 followers go on a
pilgrimage to Makkah. They are impeded
by the citizens of the town, which leads
to the Pact of Hudaybiyya, which ends
hostilities and establishes the right of pil-
grimage to the city.

xi
 CHRONOLOGY
630 Mohammad marches to Makkah with
30,000 followers; the city surrenders and
its citizens convert to Islam peacefully.
632 Death of Mohammad. Abu Bakr, his
father-in-law, becomes the first successor,
or caliph.
635 The Qur’an is compiled.
655 Islam spreads throughout the Maghreb.
661 Mu’awiya becomes caliph and establishes
the Umayyad dynasty with its capital in
Damascus.
680 Husayn and his followers revolt against
the Umayyads, but are slain. The incident
gives rise to the Shi’a schism.
710 Arab armies enter Spain.
750 Abu al-‘Abbas establishes the Abbasid
dynasty.
762 Baghdad becomes its capital.
848 The Samarra Mosque is built in Iraq.
937 The Fatimid dynasty is established in
Egypt with its capital in Cairo.
1055 The Seljuk Turkish army captures
Baghdad and its leader becomes the sul-
tan; the Seljuks take control of the Abbasid
Empire.
1095 First Crusade.
1099 Fall of Jerusalem, resulting in the creation
of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the
Outremer Crusader states.
1147–49 The Second Crusade results in a Muslim
victory in the Holy Land. The Crusaders
take Iberia and the Baltic.
1169 Saladin takes control of Egypt, makes
himself sultan, and ends the Fatimid
dynasty.
1174 Saladin declares himself sultan of Egypt
and Syria.

xii
 CHRONOLOGY
1187 The battle of Hittin; Saladin conquers the
Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.
1189–92 Third Crusade; Crusaders capture Acre
and Jaffa but fail to take Jerusalem from
Saladin.
1258 The Mongol army sacks Baghdad and
ends the de facto rule of the Abbasid
Empire.
1260 The battle of Ain Jalut; Egyptian Mamluks
defeat the Mongols in Palestine, thereby
stopping Mongol expansion in the Middle
East.
1291 Fall of Acre, signalling the end of the
Crusader states in the Middle East.
Modern Chronology
1517 The Ottomans assume sovereignty over
The Hijaz and Sultan Selim adopts the
title of caliph.
1745 Pact between Abdul Wahhab and the
House of Saud.
1745–1818 First Saudi Islamic state.
1802 Mohammad ibn Saud captures Makkah.
1811 Mohammad ‘Ali Pasha recaptures The
Hijaz in Ottoman–Saudi War.
1824–1891 Second Saudi Islamic state.
1871 The Ottomans occupy Hasa and Asir.
Muhammad ibn Rashid captures Hasa
from the Al Saud.
1889 Abdul Rahman ibn Faysal evicts Ibn
Rashid from Riyadh.
1891 The Saudis are defeated by the forces of
Muhammad ibn Rashid, bringing an end
to the second Saudi state.
1902 Imam Abdulaziz ibn Saud launches a suc-
cessful attack against Riyadh and initiates
the third Islamic Saudi state.

xiii
 CHRONOLOGY
1906 Ibn Saud conquers Qasim.
1908 The Young Turks seize power in the
Ottoman Empire. Hussein ibn ‘Ali
becomes the Sharif of the Two Holy Cities
under Ottoman auspices. Factionalism
begins to emerge between Ibn Saud and
his cousins the Araif.
1910 The British send Captain William
Shakespear to initiate contact with Ibn
Saud.
1912 The Ikhwan (‘Brotherhood’) is
established.
1913 Saudi forces advance on Hofuf and disarm
the Turkish garrison, expanding the Saudi
state to the Gulf.
28 July 1914
  Outbreak of the First World War.
October 1914 Lord Kitchener, the British Agent and
Consul in Egypt, establishes contact with
Emir Abdullah.
14 November 1914
  The Ottoman Empire declares jihad
against the Allied powers.
July 1915–January 1916 The Hussein–McMahon Correspondence.
December 1915 The Darin Pact between Great Britain
and Imam Ibn Saud.
1916 Ibn Saud defeats the Ajman tribesmen
with British assistance.
May 1916 The Sykes–Picot Agreement.
June 1916–October 1918 The Arab Revolt.
June 1916 The Hijaz declares independence from
the Ottoman Empire.
November 1917 The Balfour Declaration.
11 November 1918
  End of the First World War.
January 1919 The Paris Peace Conference starts.
28 June 1919
  The Treaty of Versailles.
January 1920 The League of Nations founded.
April 1920 The San Remo Conference.
10 August 1920
  The Treaty of Sèvres.

xiv
 CHRONOLOGY
3 March 1924
  Atatürk abolishes the Caliphate.
March 1924 Sharif Hussein adopts the title of caliph.
July 1924 The Pilgrimage Congress convened in
Makkah.
September 1924 Wahhabi forces carry out the Taif massa-
cre.
October 1924 The Hijaz National Party established;
Emir ‘Ali replaces Sharif Hussein as King
of The Hijaz.
December 1925 King ‘Ali surrenders Jeddah to Imam Ibn
Saud’s forces.
1926 The Kingdom of Hijaz and Sultanate of
Najd proclaimed.
May 1926 The General Islamic Congress for the
Caliphate convened in Cairo.
June 1926 The Congress of the Islamic World in
Makkah.
September 1926 Organic Instructions for The Hijaz announ­
ced.
1927 Certain groups of the Ikhwan rebel.
May 1927 The Treaty of Jeddah signed between
Imam Ibn Saud and Great Britain.
1928 The Free Hijaz Party established in
Makkah.
1929 King Saud prevails over rebellious Ikwhan
with British air support.
December 1931 The General Islamic Congress in Jerusalem.
1932 King Saud suppresses the Hijazi revolt.
September 1932 The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is pro-
claimed.
1933 The Montevideo Convention on the Rights
and Duties of States.
1938 Discovery of an unprecedented crude oil
reserve in Saudi Arabia.
1940s The Second World War; founding of the
UN; Saudi reliance on the USA; rise of
pan-Arab regimes and liberal monarchies;
start of the Cold War.

xv
 CHRONOLOGY
1970s Iranian Islamic Revolution; Capture of
Makkah
1980s–1990s Decline of the pan-Arabist movement;
rise of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan;
increasing build-up of US bases through-
out the Middle East; Islamic political dis-
course; fall of the Berlin Wall; end of the
Cold War.
2001 Al-Qaida’s 11 September (9/11) terror-
 

ist attacks in the USA.

2002 War in Afghanistan.
2003 War in Iraq.
2010 Arab Spring/Arab Uprisings in wider
Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
2014 Rise and expansion of DA’ISH.

xvi
In music theory, The Hijaz Maqam or Scale is distinguished by its [clarity] and
compassion.
It lends itself to melancholic passion…. It is a scale through which feelings of sorrow,
of nostalgia, and a trove of sadness are expressed.
It is the enabler, par excellence, of delivering the expression of the long journey;
the longing by the revelation of the vastness of its vocal reach … for the sense of dis-
 

tance …
It is the foundational scale of Arab Music, and indeed the only inclusive musical scale
that is at once Eastern and Western.
This Scale is balanced, possessing a dignified temperament … in its folds there is
reverence.
Sometimes … it unearths a buried joy … and a happiness tainted by sorrow; or sorrow
visited by celebration.
It is sublime when expressing the desert and its limitless abundance….The night and
its enveloping darkness … and the ever scattering of scarred stars.
It is so very soulful…. So magnificent is its space of yearning for the lover. And finally,
The Hijaz, for the weary … is the Oasis…
Amjad al-Attafi,
Maestro of the Arab Music Orchestra, Cairo

xvii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My sincerest gratitude goes out to the following people, without

whom this book would not have been completed:
1. The following distinguished peers who took the time out of their
very busy schedules to review earlier drafts of the manuscript:
Professor Ahmad Atif Ahmad, Professor of Religious Studies,
University of California, Santa Barbara; Dr Tom D. Grant, Senior
   

Research Fellow, Wolfson College, and Associate, Lauterpacht

Centre for International Law (LCIL), University of Cambridge;
Dr James Summer, Lecturer, Director of the Centre for
 

International Law and Human Rights, Lancaster University; and,

especially, Professor Marc Weller, Professor of International Law
and International Constitutional Studies and Director of the LCIL.
2. The Lauterpacht Centre and its staff have been incredibly generous
with their time and resources to make a comfortable intellectual
home for me to write this book. Special thanks to Marc Weller (and
his Havana Club), to Dr John Barker, the late Sir Eli Lauterpacht,
 

LCIL’s founder, James Crawford for his invitation to the Centre,

and, of course, Karen Fachechi for all her kind support.
3. Peterhouse College, for deepening my fellowship and association at
the University of Cambridge. I especially thank my friend and first
lecturer on English legal methods, Dr Roderick Munday, Fellow
 

and Director of Studies in Law at Peterhouse, and the former

Master, Professor Adrian Dixon. I also thank Professor Brendan
Simms, Professor of the History of European International
Relations, for his intellectual comradeship and continued support

xix
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
as we pondered the history, and indeed the future, of a Middle East
Westphalia.
4. The captain and crew of the M/V Lady Sarya, for making the Lady
of the Sea a place of solitude in the midst of the sea of ideas at a
critical stage in writing the book.
5. The Institution Quraysh (iQ) staff have been indispensable, both in
driving this research and, in my absence, taking the burden of man-
aging everything related to iQ. I am eternally grateful to Monde
 

Marshall. The iQ Policy Manager, Pavlos Efthymiou, provided a

Hellenic touch to The Hijaz and exceptional support during the
finalization of the manuscript. The book also benefited greatly from
the editorial services of Robert Verkaik and David Rodgers.
6. The invaluable iQ researchers, Kinda Dahlan, Aleksandra Anna
Bardon, Birju Mujahid Dattani, Maciej Zenkiewicz, Murshad Habib,
and Mustafa Khedewi, without whom none of the research or draft-
ing of this manuscript would have been possible. They each brought
very distinct experiences, cultures, and knowledge to this project.
7. I thank Michael Dwyer, Publisher and Managing Director of
C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd. He not only appreciated the
 

importance of The Hijaz at this important historical ‘Westphalian

moment’, but was also firm about comprehensively establishing this
work’s future intellectual value. My gratitude goes to the whole
team at Hurst Publishers for their diligent efforts.
8. I wish to thank my family: my mother for her undying support; my
forefathers, grandfather, and father for their wisdom and guidance;
my siblings; my sons Sayyid Fihr, Sayyid Ahmad Zayni, and Sayyid
Hamza, and my darling daughter Sirr al-Nada for their love.
9. Lastly, I wish to thank my beloved wife, Sarah, and the women of
The Hijaz—the real last standing Hijazis. They have endured so
much and, like most mothers, are the real heroines—they leave us
with only the scales of an ancient song, forgotten but forever true.

xx
 PREFACE

Up until the first part of the last century, our house in Mecca (Makkah,
for accuracy, henceforth) was adjacent to the palace of the Grand
Sharif.1 The women in the family would take it in turn to pass my
grandfather, a toddler then, from across the roshan to the young Turkish
wife of the Sharif, Umm Zayd. The roshan is a unique Hijazi architec-
tural structure, a bay-window balcony-like feature composed of man-
gour or teak wood artistically assembled in crossing forty-five degree
angles to make up geometric shapes akin to a beehive. Indeed, like the
word Hijaz itself, which, if taken literally, would mean barrier, the
roshan has a unique feature: veiling the inside but allowing access to the
light and breeze from the outside—a sort of breathing light.
  My grandfather told me that he saw the Sharif once. He recounted
how frightened he was as a child of three at the sight of the Sharif enter-
ing the room. Though not a large man, the Grand Sharif had a magnifi-
cent white beard, an imposing turban, and a black robe. He would
describe to me his piercing gaze. He did not believe the Sharif was
mortal until he took off his turban and asked his wife who the child was.
  Many years after that first and last encounter with the Sharif, my
grandfather wrote a long history on the Arab Revolt of 1916–18.
Before he passed away, almost a decade ago, he entrusted me with the
three-volume handwritten manuscript to publish after his death. For
some reason—and I am not one to lose such things—it was lost. With
a great sense of both shame and loss, I have attempted to recall the
detailed accounts of the Sharif of Makkah, palace intrigue, the compet-
ing Hashemites, the war campaign, and, more poignantly, the promise

xxi
 PREFACE
of that era of change. Not much came back to my busy mind except the
following single, lucid piece of history that he narrated numerous times
throughout my childhood, youth, and adulthood. I am still both con-
vinced and surprised that he somehow believed that it contained the
moral or the code for the Arab Revolt:
On a very hot late Thursday morning in June 1916 in Makkah, almost
a century ago, days before the Arab Revolt, Sharif Hussein of Makkah
was sitting down in his roshan at al-Ghazzah Palace. As he sipped a small
glass of tea and looked down at the illustrious souk, he could not help
but drift into thinking about the large events that were about to unfold,
the British, the Jews, the Wahhabis, his friend the Ottoman Sultan,
Jerusalem, and the Revolt!
He then spotted a young Hadrami rug merchant. Observing the skilful
south Arabian youth, industrious in his efforts to sell one particular rug,
the ageing white-bearded man, soon to be proclaimed King of Hijaz and
Ruler of Arabia, was struck by the boy’s efforts to sell that one rug. So
magnificent in its splendour, glorious in its allure, this rug, a tapestry of
colours, radiated awe and grace. Impressed by the rug, but more so by
the youthful roaming merchant, the Sharif summoned the lad and
inquired about the price of the rug. The young man told him that he
could not know for certain. Sharif Hussein, in an attempt to be equita-
ble, ordered him to search for the highest price for that particular article
and return to his wazir, at which point he would procure it for double
the price. So excited was the merchant that he ran out, only to be star-
tled by the loud call of his newly found patron and the grip of the large
bailiff: ‘Ya walad!’ (Young man!) called the soon-to-be-King of Arabia.
‘Labeyk, ya sidi,’ (I am here, my lord) replied the startled young man.
The Sharif paused for a moment, adjusted his beautiful white Makkan
turban, and gazed with his cold yet fiery eyes at the Hadrami walad, and
ordered him, ‘La tibi’ rakhis’ (do not sell cheap). The boy answered with
swift wit, ‘La tuwasi haris’ (advise not the assiduous).
The melodic exchange enchanted al-Hussein bin ‘Ali: his newly found
iambic pentameter, ‘la tibi’ rakhis, la tuwasi haris’, ‘la tibi’ rakhis, la
tuwasi haris’, ‘la tibi’ rakhis, la tuwasi haris’, hummed and hummed in
his head until two days later. … Until that very first bullet that he shot
above the sky of the Holy Mosque announcing the Arab Revolt; defining
the modern history of the Arabs forever!
  This memory left him with something empty inside. This emptiness
that he described was not merely about the cruelty of a certain reli-

xxii
 PREFACE
gious tendency or a nationalist plight. It is a nostalgic feeling towards
what seemed like the promise of a glorious future. It is at once the
irony of witnessing the inception of a powerful dream of self-determi-
nation and paying the heavy price of understanding its existential fail-
ure. What is more ironic, my grandfather would have been heartened
to know that I unearthed archival documents written by and addressed
to his father, my great-grandfather, Sayyid Abdullah Dahlan, the last
representative of the Institution of the Grand Mosque from Singapore,
where he was exiled for his pro-Ottoman position.2
  The most powerful aspect of the history written by my grandfather
was not necessarily the narrative account of the Revolt itself, but rather
the fact that it was a narrative recited by one of Saudi Arabia’s leading
legislators. As a lawyer, I sought to study the legal aspects of the Revolt
for Arab self-determination in The Hijaz, to utilize resources and infor-
mation that were unavailable to my grandfather. I am aware both of the
political sensitivities and unexamined biases, but, equally, of the impor-
tance of academic integrity. I believe that it is important to now begin
such a scholarly project situated within the discipline of international
law by describing with precision the geopolitical history that defines
much of the Middle East today. Over the course of the years that it
took me to write and research this book I have come to recognize that,
like everything else in life, no one truth is absolute. If our intention
behind investigating history, painful and dark as it may be, is to heal the
future, we must not look for heroes or villains, or we will remain
trapped by the follies of the past.3
* * *
This is a book written as we reflect on the centenary of the 1916 Arab
Revolt. It is a new take on the critical untold legal and political history
of Arabia after the First World War and the Arab Revolt for self-deter-
mination. The Hijaz, the western territory of the Arabian Peninsula (in
present-day Saudi Arabia), home to the Two Holy Cities of Makkah and
Medina, and host to millions of Muslim pilgrims annually, was the
political driver of this movement—and was indeed the first modern
Arab state—yet there is no legal history or modern political text on it.
  This book was encouraged by Oxford University Press on the occa-
sion of completing the online resource, Oxford Historical Treaties. The

xxiii
 PREFACE
Hijaz was noted on the online resource as a signatory to several trea-
ties, but the editors had minimal information on its character, history,
and significance.
  The bulk of the book was researched and developed during a sab-
batical at the University of Cambridge Lauterpacht Centre for
International Law (2014–15), where I would draw upon resources
on international law methodologies and Middle East studies, as well
as primary sources on doctrinal Islamic legal concepts.
  It relied on archival research at the British Foreign Offices in India
and Cairo, the UK National Archives (Kew), the al-Azhar Archives in
Cairo, and the Ottoman Correspondence Registry in Istanbul. Many
documents unearthed led to critical findings regarding The Hijaz and
my understanding of the making of the modern Middle East.
  During my research, I did not find any modern books on the state
of Hijaz. The books written in the last century on the topic have often
been influenced by the larger events that dictated Arab politics rather
than the state of Hijaz itself. Colonial accounts of the British Arab
Bureau in Cairo, the main Arab intelligence at the time, reaffirm the
lack of information on The Hijaz itself, including the Arab Bulletin,
which was later compiled by its chief, D. G. Hogarth, in Hejaz before
   

World War I: A Handbook, Volume 7 of the Arabia Past and Present

series. Equally, the Arab nationalist movements pushed forth their
narrative primarily in the 1939 book The Arab Awakening: The Story of
the Arab National Movement by George Antonius. The book was later
challenged in Western academia based on claims that were supported
by Sharif Hussein’s personal papers after the breakdown of The Hijaz
liberation movement.
  The study will be the first international, legal-historical treatment
of The Hijaz, and, as far as we know, of Saudi Arabia as well. It provides
a rare Islamic understanding which is crucial for international lawyers
in order to analyse current legal and public security challenges—
including those presented by Islamic militant groups such as the Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL), or Islamic State (IS), although we refer to the group
in this book by the Arabic acronym DA’ISH. It addresses the compli-
 

cated doctrinal aspects of Islamic statehood and places competing

notions of the Caliphate in a historic context while proposing a new

xxiv
 PREFACE
theory on integrative internationalization, which is, in and of itself, an
innovation in the field of international law.
* * *
This study uncovers the legal history of The Hijaz, a history somewhat
obscure to most, and certainly to international law readers, though
among this group there is considerable interest in the creation, failure,
and afterlife of states. This is a book that aims for scholarly rigour but
also caters to those interested in Middle East current affairs.
  Two important prefatory notes on the state of The Hijaz need to be
considered from the outset of this study. Both notes relate to the status
of The Hijaz at the time of its invasion by Najd in 1923.
  Firstly, both the international law purist and the novice may begin
by questioning whether The Hijaz was a state. The responses to the
query would tend to be in the affirmative, simply because of the flexi-
bility under international law for states to take different forms, even if
in a position of dependency. This proposition is supported by the
Commission of Rapporteurs in the Aaland Islands dispute of 1921,
which accorded Finland the character of a state despite being part of
the Russian Empire. Additionally, John Quigley has argued in his book
The Statehood of Palestine that Palestine was a state, despite the British
Mandate. The statehood of The Hijaz has therefore been taken as a
given throughout this study, for the aforementioned as well as the fol-
lowing two reasons: (i) a universally-agreed precise definition for a
state does not exist, and is unlikely to exist under international law;
and (ii) strong arguments can be made that The Hijaz exhibited several
features of a state as defined by Western scholars today. Such arguments
are likely to convince even the most sceptical of jurists despite caveats
relating to such questions as permanence, survival, and prior claim.
  Secondly, there is the question of whether The Hijaz was a member
of the League of Nations, with the legal ramifications of membership
making this query the subject of greater contestation. Part I Annex A
to the Covenant of the League lists The Hijaz as a ‘founding member’;
the Hansard entry HC Deb 17 March 1930 vol. 236 c1714 corrobo-
 

rates this. However, Hansard also records then Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, Mr A. Henderson, suggesting that The Hijaz did not
   

ratify the Treaty of Versailles or indeed any of the requisite treaties.

xxv
 PREFACE
Although it was mentioned that the King of Hijaz intended to ratify the
treaties, no formal record of ratification could be found. It is thus more
likely that the ratification did not take place; and The Hijaz was, after
the invasion, absorbed into Saudi Arabia.
  The legal challenge to the statehood of The Hijaz, therefore,
becomes a question of inter-temporal law. In other words, the legal
effects of the invasion of The Hijaz must be considered in the light of
the international law of the time, and not of later law. International law
in the form of the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Statute of 1945
unequivocally establish that a state cannot acquire lawful title to the
territory of another state by force or threat. What is unclear, however,
is whether the same—or a similar—rule of international law existed
at the time of the invasion in 1925.
  Potential support for the proposition can be sought in Article 10 of
the League of Nations Covenant, which creates an individual commit-
ment for its members to respect the territorial integrity of other mem-
bers. The challenge of course, is that The Hijaz’s membership of the
League is not universally accepted. Additionally, unlike the UN Charter,
the Covenant is not unequivocal—and, in fact, Articles 12 and 13 of the
Covenant, although discouraging the use of force in international rela-
tions, do not preclude it entirely. Indeed, a strong case can be made that
international law, at the time, did not preclude the invasion of The Hijaz.
That being said, Article 11 of the League of Nations Covenant brings
additional interest into this discussion by extending responsibilities to
all League members when it comes to the use of force or threat of
aggression. Specifically, the article declares such instances ‘a matter of
concern to the whole League’, irrespective of whether the events
unfolding affect the League of Nations membership.4 Overall, there is
perhaps more evidence to support the argument that, until the 1928
Kellogg–Briand Pact, states could and did acquire territory by force and
by threat. We address these important questions in Chapter 6, with a
view to assessing the significance and the implications of the applicable
legal context as well as the stance of the League of Nations and the
Allies, in the context of the 1920s, which saw the conquest and eventual
assimilation of The Hijaz by the forces of Ibn Saud.
  Although there is a certain morality and earnestness that could
attract a lawyer to take an advocate’s approach to The Hijaz—namely,

xxvi
 PREFACE
to argue that the incorporation of that state into Saudi Arabia was a
breach of law—this is not the route that is adopted in this book. We do
not presume that international legal scholars would find the argument
convincing enough. And, even if such an argument should be accepted,
it would have a significant destabilizing effect on modern law, as there
are a number of territorial settlements that nobody seriously questions
today, which have emerged as a result of force before the crystallization
of the modern rule.
  Accordingly, this study focuses on the history of The Hijaz and Arab
self-determination instead. It traces the causes and international legal
origins of statehood, beginning with the Arab Revolt of 1916 and the
short life of the Kingdom of Hijaz, in order to: (i) tell a story that has
inherent interest; (ii) relate that story to where we are today in the
Middle East; (iii) relate it also to the current, topical interest—namely
the emergence of modern Syria and Iraq; and of course (iv) analyse and
deepen our understanding of Saudi Arabia, including its internal con-
tradictions and tensions. As a precursor for this ‘hidden narrative’, the
study traces the origins of Islamic statehood a thousand years back to
find the ‘idealized state’ in the venture of Islam: The Hijaz. That history
paves ways for the statehood argument; namely, that from the point of
view of modern international law, The Hijaz deserves active and special
protections. But this is buttressed by pragmatic considerations—hence
the proposition for a unique form of self-determination that marries
autonomy with international dimensions. The study ultimately con-
cludes with reflections on current ills and the danger of a regional
collapse (and possibly the dangers of the status quo), making the case
that The Hijaz may be an ‘integrative’ solution for a looming Middle
East Westphalian moment.

xxvii
 INTRODUCTION

The Hijaz (Hejaz, Hedjaz, ‫ احلجاز‬al-HHiggaaz) is an obscure Arabic geo-

     

graphical designation for the western region of the Arabian Peninsula.

In Arabic the word means barrier, which denotes the mountain range
that separates it from the central Arabian plateau. Today, the word
seems to be folded into historical texts, and into its modern mother
state, Saudi Arabia.Yet The Hijaz opens our eyes to the world of Islam,
and to the not-too-distant international legal history that defined the
Middle East and the trends and occurrences we are witnessing in the
world today. International law and Islam have a peculiar—if not
tense—interdisciplinary relationship, and, more often than not, prefer
to avoid close encounters. While this superficial relationship persists,
the single most important unit of international law—the state—and in
Islam—The Hijaz—remain buried. Islam began in The Hijaz, yet few
historians and fewer international lawyers remember that there was a
state of Hijaz.
  The purpose of this book is to tell the legal history of The Hijaz and
Saudi Arabia, to locate them within their Arab and Islamic contexts,
and to outline some of their possible futures, desirable and otherwise.
It asserts that the crisis in the Middle East can be understood best in
the context of Islamic governance and international legal history. The
Hijaz is central to such understanding.
  The main vector of approach is the corpus of international law: any
attempt to clarify or re-imagine the future of The Hijaz has to be placed
within the framework of statehood and self-determination norms,
principles, precedents, conventions, treaties, generally accepted juris-

1
 THE HIJAZ
prudence, and customs that support that law. In this context, the
Islamic thrust of our inquiry is aimed at the sources of legitimate gov-
ernance of the modern state, both in terms of the concept tout court
and with reference to the particular statecraft and political discourse
of the Islamic and Arab worlds.
  We will also look at two crucial passages in the Islamic history of
the Arabian Peninsula that contribute the hermeneutics and factual
matrices within which international law must be applied. The first lies
at the point of origin of Islam, the idealized form of statehood, in the
period beginning in the seventh and eighth centuries, when the first
principles of governance and legitimate policy were laid down, largely
in isolation from ‘mainstream’ political philosophy as it had been
developed by the Greeks.
  The Islamic state in The Hijaz only existed for nearly forty years in
the seventh century, during and immediately after the Prophet
Mohammad’s life. It was the first, and, arguably, the only, Islamic state.
Here, the Wathiqa or Constitution of Medina, which the Prophet
drafted upon his immigration to Medina, makes an essential frame of
reference, as it was a social contract that governed and organized the
nexus of relations in the newborn state between the natives living in
Medina, including the Quraysh Muhajirun, the Ansar,1 and the Jews. The
Constitution addressed essential points, such as defining the nature of
the state. The term umma is used in the Constitution several times to
refer to the new collective body of citizens in Medina (‘collectivity’) as
a single nation territorially defined, Muslims and others.
  It is important to decisively submit that what this origin bequeathed
the Islamic world was just that: an origin. Unlike the European world,
which had seen great innovation in forms of government but had never
settled on a consensus as to which was preferable, the mode by which
the first Islamic state came into existence left its imprint—clear,
smudged, or distorted—on all those that came after. And for the Arab
countries, thirteen centuries later, The Hijaz was just that: the first
legal person—just as it was the first Islamic state at Islam’s inception.
  Despite presiding over this primal statehood, The Hijaz is often
overlooked in accounts of the twentieth-century origins of statehood,
and this brings us to our second key historical passage, the formation
of the ‘modern Middle East’ in the two decades after the end of the

2
 INTRODUCTION
First World War. This tumultuous period resembled a landscape after a
volcanic eruption—molten streams of men and ideas pouring out over
a shattered colonial landscape until they cooled into states, fanned on
their way by the agenda papers of diplomatic conferences.
  The new nation-states that emerged from the chains of empire were
a curious collection. Some, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, were born
with fabulous ‘undeserved’ wealth; some, like Transjordan, had little;
others, like Yemen, had nothing.Yet others, such as Iraq and Syria, were
handicapped by the means and conditions of their inception.
  The way that the political map of the Middle East was overlain on its
physical and human geography meant that the Arab nations started life
on a wildly distorted board. Living within borders defined by the colo-
nial powers—the Sykes–Picot system, as some have referred to it—
generations of Arabs lived lives largely determined by which sides of
imaginary lines they happened to be on. From an Islamic point of view,
taking into account that a state is a product of generations (duwal) of
polities, reconciling a new state with both a legacy and an ideal of
‘generations of Islamic states’ was a central difficulty. Internally, the
new polities had to be reshaped, and consecutive rulers sought to read-
just the meaning of governance and constitution to the theories of
Islamic leadership and public policy while the bilad al-haramayn (the
sanctified places of Makkah and Medina) were the subject of new impe-
rial alliances and relations.
  These two periods, more than a millennium apart, have surprising
parallels. Both were periods in which new worlds were created out of
old ones, and both were marked by foundational tensions that festered
into political sectarianism. In the eighth century, the key passage took
place forty years after the death of the Prophet Mohammad—a crucial
reference period not only for Islamic statehood but also for Islamic
political thought, as we shall see. Here the first generation of Islamic
leaders was faced with the problem of determining a form of authority
that captured a sense of legitimacy, and therefore statehood. The solu-
tion was to nominate the Prophet’s successor, or caliph, from his
Quraysh companions, although the nomination process required doc-
trinal innovation. Others chose to focus their enquiry on which relative
should be the first caliph or Imam: Abu Bakr, the Prophet’s trusted
friend and companion; or ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, his cousin and son-in-law.

3
 THE HIJAZ
Many argue that this dilemma led to the Shi’ite schism in the first
century of Islam, even if it was not itself the main cause.
  The home state of the Caliphate government was Medina (in The
Hijaz). The first three of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs, or Rashidun,
ruled from the city until 656, a year after the assassination of the Third
Rightly Guided Caliph, ‘Uthman, when ‘Ali, the Fourth Rightly Guided
Caliph, broke with The Hijaz by relocating his government to the new
Iraqi garrison city of Kufa. After ‘Ali, the centre of the Caliphate was
never again located in The Hijaz. It was Damascus between 660 and
750, afterwards Baghdad, and then elsewhere.
  Although most are aware of Baghdad as the capital of the medieval
Caliphate, it is Medina that is regarded as the first Islamic state, and the
only one that fulfilled the ideals of Islam. It was not simply the fact that
the secular and the sacred were co-located; it was also a new sense of
collectivity, which was directly referred to in the Constitution of
Medina. The Constitution cited the umma as an essential means of con-
ferring legitimacy on a ruler, and it redefined the word to mean the
collective body of the Muslims, as distinct from its previous designa-
tion of a wider group that included migrant tribes, Jews, and others. A
sense of affiliation or formalized affinity was therefore encapsulated by
the term, and it conferred upon members of this new group a legal
status similar to the spirit of modern popular citizenship (muwatana).
This affiliation or affinity was an elemental condition of statehood in
Islam. The idea of the umma was later to be applied to the Arab nation-
alist worldview of the collective Arab peoples.
  In the period following the 1916 Arab Revolt, the issue was again
whether consanguinity conferred a Weberian form of legitimacy, and
the argument was advanced that there was a legal requirement to have
leadership over the umma reside in the House of the Prophet, in the
form of an Arab Hashemite of the Quraysh tribe. In the second half of
the nineteenth century, Britain’s imperial planners had found a dagger
with which to undercut the Ottomans with this precondition for legiti-
macy, and had advocated that the Sharif of Makkah rather than an
Ottoman Turk should be sovereign over Muslims—or at least the
Arabs.
  After the First World War, and the success of the Arab Revolt, the
ambitions of the Hashemite sovereign interfered with British policy

4
 INTRODUCTION
and the plans of the Entente to redesign the Middle East. The only
way out of the powerful dream of a single Arab state with its capital
in Makkah is to counter the narrative—and indeed the legitimacy—
of the bloodline of the Prophet with the authority of militant ideol-
ogy over the Holy Lands; in effect, to counter a narrative of the
homeland of the Arabs with that of an Islamic awakening that would
neutralize Arabia.
  Although the elimination of The Hijaz caused no immediate visible
damage to the fabric of international relations, the unleashing of
Wahhabi ideology in the Middle East now looks like one of the graver
international consequences of British imperial diplomacy in its sunset
years, and deserves far greater attention when considering statehood
in the region.

Saudi Arabia and the Holy Land

The Hijaz today is, concurrently, a region within the modern Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia and the former state that made that modern polity
possible. But The Hijaz cannot be seen just as a geographical region in
Saudi Arabia, or as exclusive to it. The Hijaz is a political–cultural
entity. Its history is essential. There are two key narrative reasons for
taking this approach: firstly, so that The Hijaz does not mistakenly
appear simply as one of a number of short-lived states that came into
existence after the First World War; and secondly, as the history of The
Hijaz adds depth and weight to Arab claims of self-determination.
  The Saudi state was formed after the First World War by Britain’s
policies towards Palestine and its support for the House of Saud, a
dynasty whose fortunes had waxed and waned over the previous three
centuries, and which was fighting to establish its third Saudi Islamic
state over the Peninsula. The means to this end was supplied by the
Ikhwan, ‘the Brotherhood of God Obedient’ or Ikhwan Man Ta‘a Allah:
nomads who became zealots under the ideological influence of an
ultra-orthodox sect of Islam known as the Wahhabis, which had formed
a strategic alliance with the Sauds in the eighteenth century.
  While the fate of Arab self-determination was being debated at the
Versailles Conference and in other European capitals after the First
World War and the success of the Arab Revolt, Saudi dominion over

5
 THE HIJAZ
The Hijaz was sealed in the summer of 1924, when Wahhabi forces
invaded the mountain city of Taif in The Hijaz, an event henceforth
known as the Madhbahat al-Taif (the Taif Massacre).
  In the past the Sauds and their allies had been checked by Ottoman
power, as manifested by Mohammad ‘Ali, an Ottoman military leader
from Albania who had become the Khedive of Egypt at the beginning
of the nineteenth century. At the beginning of the twentieth century,
after establishing a ‘personal union’ of Hijaz and Najd, the House of
Saud was faced with the problem of dealing with the technical special-
izations required by the modern worlds of finance, trade, and manufac-
ture, as well as—more importantly—separatist tendencies. To meet
this challenge it needed a new single, unified state—with the civil
servants, merchants, and financiers of Hijaz to make it happen. In fact,
it was the accession of this class that gave the British-supported Saudi
state the capacity to form institutions of governance. This is covered in
greater depth in Chapter 2.
  The marriage between the nomadic, rough, direct style of the Najd
and the sophisticated, courtly culture of The Hijaz was, at first, an
unhappy one. The Wahhabis’ prohibition on the veneration of burial
sites and their hostility to all other schools of jurisprudence were two
points where the manacle chafed the wrist. More serious still was the
strangling in its cradle of Hijazi Arab self-determination, which had put
forward an entirely different programme for realizing Islamic notions
of modern governance and righteous law in formal political terms. In
effect, there was an abrupt shift from an ethnocentric Arab discourse
to a nationalist rhetoric that was limited to The Hijaz: in practice bring-
ing the elite’s aspirations into line with what had been agreed five years
before at the League of Nations. Later, The Hijaz National Charter,
supported by most Arab lands, adopted the tenets of popular demo-
cratic norms, rather than the feudal absolutism adopted and adapted by
the House of Saud.
  In time, while diverse religious émigrés from the Two Holy Mosques
fled the Arabian Peninsula to Asia and elsewhere, the cosmopolitan elite
of The Hijaz were co-opted into the Saudi state, and were given posi-
tions of influence and prestige. However, the tensions that were present
at the founding of modern Saudi Arabia were never entirely resolved.
Makkah and Medina have retained a separate identity, and the status of
the Holy Cities has continued to arouse passions throughout the

6
 INTRODUCTION
Muslim world. The problem is that the Kingdom’s polity has never
been able to adjust itself to accommodate them, even when the influx
of oil wealth was able to pacify them.
  One important factor is the Kingdom’s role in the regional power
structure, where it must play the guardian of reaction, demonstrating
an increasing willingness to intervene to prevent neighbouring states
from altering their internal order. This role, reminiscent of that played
by the Russian and Austrian empires in mid-nineteenth-century
Europe, has been expressed in Sunni conflicts in Lebanon as well as
the recent interventions in Yemen and Bahrain, and an ever-deeper
involvement in the Syrian quagmire. Another factor is that the USA
has backed the Kingdom because of its abdundant oil wealth, which
has given it a fixed role in the wider political economy of the post-war
global order. This was manifested in formal terms by the highly
unusual decision to transfer power by agnatic seniority: that is, from
the eldest of the thirty-seven sons of the founding king, Abdulaziz Ibn
Saud, to his next-eldest brother, rather than to his eldest son. Until
very recent constitutional reforms, the system was seen as a way of
making the hereditary principle as stable as possible, by handing on
power to older rather than younger men, thereby conferring all the
benefits that age and experience are thought to entail. It also allows
power to be transferred to statesmen whose abilities—or lack of
them—can be anticipated, and it prevents the possibility of contested
titles, childlessness, and the other ills that monarchies are heir to.
Most importantly, and while succession experienced an ‘evolution’
through a cousinhood system, it remains shackled by its religious
Wahhabi foundations, depriving the monarchy of the flexibility to take
on constitutional and democratic norms of governance that would
enable it to face the challenges of the twenty-first century. Indeed, it
is a heavy burden for the monarchy, as it is blamed, both directly and
indirectly, for the new wave of al-Qaida’s postmodernist programme
and DA’ISH’s neo-medievalist global ambitions.

The Hijaz and aWestphalian Moment?

The consequences of the two above-mentioned historical passages and
the status of The Hijaz—and by extension, Saudi Arabia—will be ana-

7
 THE HIJAZ
lysed in detail later in this work. Inevitably, it will be informed by an
awareness that the paths taken have led to a region crippled by conflict.
Despite a century-long effort that began with The Hijaz, as the first
Arab legal entity, to remedy the ills of the colonial past, to develop
modern economies, to adopt new principles of governance, to reach
new regional political arrangements, and to reformulate Islamic doc-
trines to accommodate or resist wider currents of change, the result
has been calamitous. The Middle East, together with its neighbours in
Afghanistan and the Maghreb, joins the Horn of Africa and the coun-
tries around the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as regions
where states are unable to provide basic services, or enforce their
monopoly on legitimate violence, in Max Weber’s well-known test.
However, although nations such as Ethiopia and Somalia are on the
road to recovery, the fate of much of the Middle East and parts of
Africa continues to hang in the balance. This is particularly evident in
Nigeria today, where the DA’ISH-aligned terror group Boko Haram
has taken hold of parts of the country.
  From a political economy perspective, most of these states have
failed to use their vast oil wealth to push forward development projects
or build popular democratic institutions, or political systems with the
usual separation of powers. Arab states have failed precisely to define
their self-expression of Islam, leaving a dangerous void, while Western
countries, and the USA in particular, have failed to resolve historical
injustices, fortifying a cynical and fatalistic view of the future on the
Arab street. The ‘undeserved’ wealth, as it is seen by many, only deep-
ens the wound in Arab consciousness.
  Equally, the countries in the region have attempted in vain to form
effective international organizations and structures, of the kind that
have been evolving across the globe, and which take their most elabo-
rate regional institutional form, as contested as it may be today, in the
European Union. For example, the countries with the greatest ideo-
logical and (Arabian) ethnic homogeneity are the members of the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC): Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates
(UAE), Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain. Nonetheless, its members
have struggled to develop the body into an effective grouping, with
Oman taking little part, and the rest apt to fall into a state of frigid
non-cooperation if not cold war. The 2017 GCC June–Ramadan Crisis

8
 INTRODUCTION
with Qatar—whose eruption coincided with the fifty-year anniversary
of the Six Day War of 1967—is a case in point.
  Moreover, in the aftermath of 9/11, the British–American invasion
of Iraq, NATO’s occupation of Afghanistan, the Arab Spring of 2011,
the furore over Iran’s nuclear ‘grand bargain’, the rise of DA’ISH,
Russia’s campaign in Syria, terrorist attacks in France and elsewhere,
and the perpetual conflicts surrounding Palestine and Israel, general
opinion in the West has taken a sharp turn against both Islam—espe-
cially the Sunni version—and also against people of Arab origin (a
category that probably includes other neighbours, as far as the broader
public is concerned).2
  This familiar picture of worsening external relations is more than
matched by the eruption of sectarian hatreds in the wake of the Shi’a–
Sunni civil war in Iraq and its spread to Syria, with further outbreaks
in Yemen and Bahrain. The worldview in 2011 was very different when
the uprisings of the Arab Spring offered so much hope for democratic
change.3 It was the peculiar tragedy of this movement that it took place
after the structure of the Middle East had been shattered by the Iraq
war. This meant that what might have been a genuine social revolution
was usurped by religious movements, and stifled by a cascade of petro-
dollars—enough money, perhaps, to have built a prosperous new
Middle East had the uprisings arrived at a more propitious moment.
Obstacles to a peaceful path for change are inextricably linked to
rivalry between the regional powers of Iran and Saudi Arabia, and,
beyond them, to the increasingly overt struggle between long-standing
and emerging global powers.
  Students of European international legal history may note a certain
resemblance to the Thirty Years War fought in Europe (1618–48), in
which a war between Christian doctrines became entangled with a
dynastic struggle between Bourbons and Habsburgs and the begin-
nings of a regional rivalry between France and Spain. Those struggles
ended with the Treaties of Westphalia, in which the state acquired
some of its modern characteristics and the modern state system could
be faintly distinguished.
  Brendan Simms of Peterhouse College (Cambridge) argues for a
Middle Eastern Westphalia, focusing not on its ideological nation-state
system revolution, but rather its legal dispute resolution and geopoliti-

9
 THE HIJAZ
cal dimension. A Middle East riven with wars and conflicts for well
over thirty years ought to find a politically oriented international legal
restart to recreate itself and its international relations.4
  What are the chances of another Westphalian moment when the
present agony engulfing the Arab lands is extinguished? Could the call
for a Caliphate be considered a counter-Westphalian moment? Could
The Hijaz offer an opening for such a time and place, for Sunnis and
Shi’a? Could it serve as part of an international dispute resolution pro-
cess? This book discusses the integrative role that The Hijaz may play in
such a moment.

Encounters with International Law

Although encounters between international law and the Islamic world
can be uncomfortable, to say the least, there are aspects of contemporary
jurisprudence that suggest a common purpose and common interest. For
instance, Lord Bingham’s reflections on the international rule of law in
his famous book The Rule of Law includes a chapter on terrorism5 recog-
nizing the dangers of the 2003 Iraq invasion. He argues: ‘If the daunting
challenges now facing the world are to be overcome, it must be in
important part through the medium of rules, internationally agreed,
internationally implemented and, if necessary, internationally enforced.
That is what the rule of law requires in the international order.’6
  It is difficult to deny that law, whether domestic or international, is
an instrument of policy. As such, it would be a grievous miscalculation
to read ‘law’ in the absence of memory, and this is particularly true of
international law. One must first look at international law’s ‘birth
pangs’—the Westphalian Peace of 1648. In addition to the intra-Euro-
pean religious conflicts, there is the auxiliary historical context of the
Ottoman Empire, which was at its apex at this particular time. A major
‘policy’ aim of international relations and international law was to keep
the (Muslim) Ottomans at bay. The ambitious conquests and expedi-
tions of the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the previous
century were still fresh in the minds of Europeans.
  One of the central tenets of the Treaty of Westphalia, the Augsburg
Settlement of 1555, established the policy cuius regio, eius religio (he
who rules, his religion), although it was never intended to apply out-

10
 INTRODUCTION
side Christian Europe. To a certain extent, there was something akin to
a cold war in the known world, with the Ottomans being cast as the
Soviet Union of its time, a power based on a different and dangerous
ideology in a bipolar world, each bloc with designs on global domina-
tion. Christian Europe, despite the beginnings of the Enlightenment,
cast itself as the shining light of civilization, resisting the incursions of
the barbarian Turks. The narrative is an ironic one since many of the
technological achievements immediately preceding and subsequent to
the Enlightenment were imported to Europe from the Islamic world.
The Grotian notion of a secularized, universal jus gentium, while ahead
of its time, was ‘unrequited’ by the Islamic world, as it contained a
pre-existing worldview that could not accommodate the legal and dip-
lomatic traditions of the Islamic world at that time. What is more ironic
is that generations of Arab leaders have adopted the modern
Westphalian nation-state indiscriminately since the middle of the twen-
tieth century, without giving due attention to the umma’s worldview.
  Going forward through history, we find that while international law
evolved significantly from its seventeenth-century roots, it was none-
theless negatively predisposed towards the non-Christian world.
Mandates, for instance, were categorized in relation to their possession
of ‘civilization’; naturally, Christian lands were to be considered more
civilized than their ‘heathen’ counterparts. In the post-war, UN era, an
increasing plethora of intellectual movements sprang up to explain
international law and its relationship to imperialism. The most notable
of these movements are Third World Approaches to International Law
(TWAIL), which was founded at Harvard Law School in 1996. The
second is Critical Legal Studies (CLS), which emerged in the late
1970s. One of the most prominent non-legal academic fields which has
looked at the political, philosophical, literary, and artistic aspects in the
characterization of the ‘exotic East’ is the study of Orientalism, coined
by Edward Said in 1978. As far as Said was concerned, the Islamic
world was always a threat to the Orientalist, for three reasons. Firstly,
its historical claim to an empire—expansive, ordered, economically
successful, and technologically inventive—made it a necessary adver-
sary from an ideological standpoint.7 Secondly, the Islamic world never
fully submitted to European ideas or subjugation.8 The Hindu and
Chinese civilizations are a distant memory from the Orientalists’ per-

11
 THE HIJAZ
spective, while the Islamic world still retains its collective memory of
past glories. Thirdly, the sheer number of Muslims indicates to the
Orientalist that Islam forever poses a latent threat if its constituents
ever ‘rise up’.9
  The encounters between international law and the Islamic world are
largely paradoxical. On the one hand, the interactions between inter-
national law, international institutions, the Western world, and Muslim
nations revolve around the settlement of conflicts and/or dealing with
human rights abuses and, more recently, global terrorism. On the
other hand, there seems to be a quiet neglect or lack of interest in the
types of regimes that are found (imposed) in the Middle East and other
parts of the Islamic world. The idea of changes in regimes in countries
such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and so forth seems incon-
ceivable in the minds of the observer and the expert alike. Balancing
the complex geopolitical and economic interests in the region requires
Faustian bargains and a commitment to address and manage their
immediate and longer-term consequences. International law, to bor-
row a thought from the eminent Finnish legal scholar Martti
Koskenniemi, lives between apology and utopia. International law, its
colonial past, and imperial present are best articulated and expressed
in the title of his magnum opus: ‘the gentle civilizer of nations’.10
  This book traces the origins of modern statehood after the fall of the
Ottoman Caliphate. It also explores the power politics in the pre-war
era, The Hijaz’s call for an Arab Revolt against the Ottomans, and the
aspirations for a unitary Arab state. Arab self-determination, legal and
political, enlivened the imagination of nationalist movements across the
Arab world while glorifying the ancient rulership institution of the
Quraysh, via the Hashemites, and the seat of the Caliphate in The Hijaz.
At the same time, the makers of the modern world were coalescing in
west London and the seventh arrondissement of Paris.
  The existence of The Hijaz and the future of Arab self-determination
was threatened by Sharif Hussein’s refusal to acquiesce in the Mandate
system, supporting Arab aspirations for Jerusalem. The state lines in the
sand created by Sykes–Picot became eternally enshrined in history
beyond the intention and imagination of the Arabs. The end result, dic-
tated by realpolitik and in disregard of the embryonic international law
system, led to annexation and the creation of a new Wahhabi alternative

12
 INTRODUCTION
state through jihad. The central Allies did not bother with duties such as
non-recognition of a Faith Militant movement, or enforcement of the
rules of their new international norms. The resulting fall of the Caliphate
in 1924 was a very difficult pill to swallow for the umma, especially as
this new Islamic Faith Militant system governed through the Islamic
Holy Seat (Makkah) and not the more legitimate Islamic Caliphate.
  Hijazis, nevertheless, sought statehood and Arab self-determination
with an ethnocentric outlook. The ‘Arab Renaissance’ of 1916 was
indeed in line with those movements, and did take on the ethnic spirit
of self-determination of the time. But as the idea of a Quraysh
Caliphate fell out of favour, and Hijazi nationalists sought to take mat-
ters into their own hands and to have a nation-state, underscoring to
the entire Islamic world its national, territorial, and constitutional
dimensions, and leaving behind the taxing Islamic notion of the
Caliphate, and caliph, after diplomatic efforts elsewhere, and taking
solace in being the Holy Seat.
  But modern trends can be cruel. Self-determination and statehood
in international law meant something completely different for The
Hijaz. Statehood was born in international law as a construct defined
along ethnic lines; but later, after the establishment of the United
Nations, it was canonized as territorial. While recent statecraft trends
seem to be pushing towards internal economic and popular sentiment,
statehood remains a mercurial legal notion, full of traps and always
evolving. Take, for example, the cases for recognition of Kosovo, and
the opponents of the annexation of Crimea by Russia, who have based
their argument on territorial integrity.
  As for the Middle East, those very lines of modern statehood also
brought about popular uprisings and Islamic extremism. History and
jurisprudence seem to indicate that we are witnessing interesting, yet
paradoxical, parallels at either end of the twentieth century.
  So is it now incumbent upon world powers to carve out ‘another’
worldview? And if so, might it even be fathomable that such a world-
view could be an Islamic one? With or without the assistance of inter-
national law? Indeed, there are democratic trends in international law
that suggest that we are moving slowly towards the light. There are
‘neo-functional’ transnational organizational arrangements, in trade
and cooperation, that can satisfy these requirements, and a non-threat-

13
 THE HIJAZ
ening (perceived or real) collective Islamic aspiration. The real hope,
however, seems to be squaring internal political arrangements with the
jurisprudential derivatives of both international law and Shar’ia objec-
tives (maqasid). Both look to political participation, rule-of-law values,
and democratic norms relating to individual rights, as opposed to push-
ing groups and communities to collective or group rights.

The State and Caliphate

To begin with, the discussions in this book on the theory of the
Caliphate in Islamic legal literature should be read with certain caveats
in mind. The ideal of the Caliphate is linked to an ideal umma or collec-
tive global Muslim community.
  There is no exact and consistent equivalent of the English word
‘state’ in Arabic, nor is the concept given a full and unambiguous treat-
ment within the Islamic legal tradition. The collective sense of what a
state is depends on how people and countries have been affected by the
faith and history of Islam: a sense of collective citizenship, or collectiv-
ity, that finds expression in the concept of the umma, an Arabic word
for which there is no precise and consistent equivalent in English.
  We do not plan to belabour the inquiry into how this global Muslim
commonwealth or collectivity can be both one and multiple; that it
includes Sunnis, Shi’a, and Ibadhis; or that it has, for at least a century,
included distinct ‘nations’ and ‘nation-states’, governed by ‘national
laws’—which, in turn, interpret the Islamic traditions differently. It is
important, however, to note that Islamic countries have always existed
under the banner of a global religious community, and that the exis-
tence of modern Islamic nations leave much of this in the same theo-
retical space. Just as The Hijaz is not claimed here as a centre for a
global Caliphate, any discussion of the Caliphate does not deny the
distinctiveness of the multiple Islamic nations and communities in the
world today, and the centrality of The Hijaz to them.
  Therefore, this book suggests that, to look for a way out of the trap
that the Middle Eastern countries find themselves in, an appreciation
of the historical facts should be accompanied by a renewed focus on the
basic unit of international law: the state. A legal understanding of the
modern origins of statehood and the modern history of The Hijaz is

14
 INTRODUCTION
vital. In particular, it will be necessary to analyse the notion of self-
determination as a concept within international law, in an Arab con-
text, and as an Islamic experience since the fall of the Caliphate almost
a century ago. It is also important to understand the core elements of
the Caliphate system and the Islamic state, and how their aura of legiti-
macy has been hijacked and manipulated by various actors, particularly
seen with DA’ISH, and its belief that capturing territories would some-
how equate to the status of statehood.11 It is vital to fully grasp the dif-
ferent layers of governance—symbolic, ideational, religious, ‘conven-
ing’—that The Hijaz and the Muslim Holy Lands command, and why
there is such an appeal, for extremists or actors wishing to establish a
pre-eminent position in the Islamic world, in the idea of ‘capturing’ or
‘seizing’ the Holiest Sites.
  Furthermore, it is essential to deconstruct the points of agreement
and disagreement between Western and Islamic notions of statehood
for a number of reasons—not merely as a means of respectful inter-
faith and inter-state dialogue, but in order to realistically comprehend
the intellectual machinery of Islamophobia that is slowly taking hold in
the doctrines of international law as detailed in the eight points pre-
sented by the secretary-general of the Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation to the Fifteenth Session of Human Rights Council in
Geneva on 16 September 2010. After having reflected on the encoun-
 

ters with international law, the book both directly and indirectly
addresses the means through which this has come to pass.12
  The first question that arises is the extent to which statehood within
the Islamic tradition is commensurate with the idea as it has emerged
from the canonical texts of Western political and legal philosophy. The
two main rival theories of statehood are: that it depends on territory,
population, government, and capacity to enter into relations with
other states; and that it depends on recognition by other states.
Quibbles are possible—for example, a government-in-exile may fulfil
some functions of a state, such as maintaining military forces, while
holding no territory of its own—but this list of necessary conditions is
not controversial, and applies equally to all states regardless of their
other characteristics. In the Islamic legitimate policy context, however,
and as we shall explain later, states are also required to have legitimacy,
in the sense that a population freely acknowledges a government’s
legitimate authority.

15
 THE HIJAZ
  What is controversial is the extent to which these necessary condi-
tions are together sufficient to establish a claim to statehood that other
states are bound to recognize by virtue of its intrinsic composition.
Here, the abstract picture of an idealized state bleeds into the real
world, in which statehood is typically seen as the final step in the
attainment of ‘national liberation’, the culmination of a struggle that
must be fought against the forces of oppression. If statehood gives a
nation the formal mechanisms of self-government, legal personhood,
and international agency, then nationhood lends the state the cultural
content that gives determination, personhood, and agency their mean-
ing. In other words, a people’s worldview plays a large part in how
individuals see themselves and how far their transcendent collective
imagination shapes a state; and this is the crux of Islamic exceptional-
ism. This is also the danger of the collective sense of persecution felt by
Muslims today.
  While ‘nationalist historiography’ is evident in this Islamic world-
view, a unique aspect of the Islamic experience is the existence of an
ideal state at the founding of Islam. Although the European tradition
and the English term ‘politics’ refer back to the Greek poleis (city-
states), the particular styles of statecraft practised there were nothing
if not heterogeneous, and were not treated as ideals against which all
other forms of state and government now fall short. Perhaps a
European version of the idea of the ideal state could be found in an
earlier period: in medieval Christian philosophy. Although Jean-Jacques
Rousseau regarded the city-state as the ideal size of democratic unit,
he did not advocate that all other states adopt it.13
  In the early development of the Islamic political order, the founders
who shaped the polity did not need to describe what it was, but those
who followed afterwards inevitably felt the need to express or reinter-
pret its existence through legal codes. There is a common misperception
that the only valid political form of government or state system in Islamic
jurisprudence is the Caliphate; even Islamic scholars are not immune to
this assumption.14 In essence, however, the Caliphate is a constitutional
framework for appointing a leader of the Islamic polity.15
  After the death of ‘Ali, the existing Islamic polity suffered a fall from
grace, as we will explore in detail later. The point to make here is that the
Medinan state retains a particular power as a lost ideal. And even after

16
 INTRODUCTION
the locus of political and military power moved north and west, The
Hijaz remained central to the caliphs’ legitimacy and concerns, not least
for the practical reason that whoever was in charge in Damascus,
Baghdad, Cairo, or Istanbul had a paramount duty to ensure that the
roads to Makkah were safe for pilgrims. It would be hard to overstate the
importance of this requirement in the present day, and, as I will argue, it
has far-reaching legal consequences that cannot be overlooked.
  Today, just under a quarter of the population of the world follows
the Islamic faith. Moreover, there are more than fifty-seven member
states in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)16 (the ‘Islamic
bloc’ in the United Nations). These states also belong to the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the African Union (AU), Asia-
Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the
League of Arab States or Arab League, and the Maghreb Arab Union
(MAU), among others.
  Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the first Turkish secretary-general of the OIC
(by election), in a manner reminiscent of the Ottoman era, declared
that the ‘OIC is an expression of a shared will for solidarity and coop-
eration that draws its binding force from [the umma’s] experiences’.17
The umma, the collectivity or worldwide community of Muslims, is a
source of appeal. This is not to be confused with a religious or political
appeal. It refers to a worldview.
  Even after the Caliphate, many polities gave primacy to Islamic law,
the Shari’a, directly or indirectly, in regulating temporal aspects of life.
The expression of adherence to Shari’a took on different forms in these
countries: in some dynamically, as positive law; in others more figura-
tively, by way of a reference—for example, in a national constitution.
This expression is allied with many shapes of governance structures
and political affiliations, but nonetheless, Islam remains the primary
legal identity and societal voice. These societies are organized around
practices and customs evolving from a 1400-year-old tradition. Social
and religious norms are deeply embedded in the way Muslim polities
function today, and even though many have changed as a result of colo-
nialism and the fall of the Caliphate, at their core they remain an
Islamic expression.
  Ultimately, comprehending Islamic doctrine becomes a matter of
policing the boundaries between epistemologies. Islamic scholars such

17
 THE HIJAZ
as Abdalrazzak al-Sanhuri Pasha (d. 1971) and ‘Ali Abdel Raziq (d.
1966) particularly debated the concept of the Caliphate following its
fall in 1924. Abdel Raziq rejected the Caliphate altogether, and chal-
lenged the conventional understanding of the political aspects of
Islam.18 Al-Sanhuri Pasha, on the other hand, argued for alternatives,
including an international organization and the codification of Islamic
law.19 More recently, Radwan al-Sayyid has argued that the concept of
an Islamic state is used differently today from what it was widely
believed to be among Muslim scholars in the past.20
  Indeed, Islam played a critical role in the polity, from the first state
of Medina all the way through to 1924. Since that time there has been
some misunderstanding both inside and outside Islamic countries on the
role and the political application of Islam. Radical, anachronistic, mili-
tant, and—overall—illegitimate movements have further influenced
this lack of understanding. The political and religious vacuum that has
dominated the period following the breakdown of the Soviet Union and
the post-9/11 global War on Terror has been filled by both extremist
and reactionary forces. Moreover, many Islamic countries are saddled
with poverty and socio-economic disadvantage. Some have been clearly
failing institutionally for decades in the areas of the rule of law and
democracy, as well as development and economic cooperation.
  To understand the situation of contemporary Islamic states one
must, therefore, trace the historical factors of Islamic statehood and,
more importantly, the birth and afterlife of the first Islamic state in the
post-First World War era, The Hijaz, towards which 23 per cent of the
   

world’s population pray and to which they must travel at least once in
their lifetime.

The Centrality of The Hijaz Today

What was the status of The Hijaz in international law, in the Caliphate, in
the League of Nations? We discuss the key stages—the rise, fall, and
afterlife of the state of Hijaz—in Chapters 4 through 6. Below, however,
are some useful trajectories to help guide the reader of this book.
  When Imam Ibn Saud conquered The Hijaz in 1925, he made prom-
ises to Hijazis, the Muslim world, and the newly formed international
community that The Hijaz would be governed by the Hijazis (as a peo-

18
 INTRODUCTION
ple), as an independent entity, with its own Islamic characteristics (dif-
ferentiated from the Wahhabis). This was not simply a guarantee of
self-government but a form of peacekeeping, which limited the need for
external policing, especially when local government and courts were in
charge of law enforcement. In other words, in the ‘Weberian’ sense, the
monopoly of force intra-Hijaz (internally—within the region and at the
local level) would remain with The Hijaz authorities.
  This organizational feature of the pre-conquest Hijaz continued after
the conquest for almost a year, underlying the more superficially radi-
cal changes to patterns of Islamic and religious sectarianism. However,
the Haram (Grand Mosque) in due time became an important unit of
social order and solidity in the Wahhabi state.
  Ideologically, the importance of The Hijaz–Najd kingdom was more
far-reaching, though less concrete. The later nationalist movement, The
Hijaz Liberation Party, relied on Imam Ibn Saud’s records of pre-con-
quest Hijaz for evidence of a democratic form of government, which,
it was said, had been illegitimately swept away when Hijaz came under
the ‘Saudi yoke’. This claim came to be embodied in a cultural tradition
which first bolstered militant opposition to Saudi rule, and later, in a
literary tradition which has echoes in the music, poetry, and prose after
the end of the personal union between Ibn Saud and Ibn ‘Abd al-Wah-
hab and the creation of the new state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It
allowed Hijaz notables, the original members of The Hijaz National
Party that gave its pledge of allegiance to Imam Ibn Saud in 1925, to
argue that the king had no power to rule over subjects without the
consent of The Hijaz Council, and (going a step further) no role for an
alternative ideology. Arguments about the powers of the king before
the single Saudi kingdom were always, as a matter of historical method,
inconclusive, but as a matter of law and political morality, they could
have considerable force.
  In terms of national identity, the tribal idea of the ‘Saudi-ness’ of
Arabia also draws on the pre-conquest era of the first and second Saudi
states, but discounts or ignores the international pan-Islamic cosmo-
politan character of the Hijazis—as distinct from the Hashemites
(namely the Quraysh and other tribes). The Hijazi language, as it is
spoken today in cosmopolitan Hijaz, is the result of the development
of a hybrid form of Arabic, Turkish, Mandarin, Indonesian, Malay,

19
 THE HIJAZ
Swahili, Urdu, Hindi, and other languages. Freedom of Islamic affilia-
tion is represented in the Grand Mosque’s inclusiveness—with the five
schools of jurisprudence. This quality of being non-sectarian and toler-
ant of diverging viewpoints is distinctively Hijazi, and a common heri-
tage since Islam’s inception. Perhaps these complexities explain why
attempts by politicians to invoke ‘Saudi-ness’ and Saudi culture have
had limited success against an Arabian union under Imam Ibn Saud.
Even people who regard themselves as Saudi have no clear idea of what
that means, beyond a vague attachment to the House of Saud and,
more dangerously, the prominence of Najd as a conqueror—excluding
others from a deeper attachment to the national union.
  Because it is unable to bend, the Saudi state must make itself as rigid
as possible in ideological terms. Rigidity, sanctified by religion, implies
brittleness. This is exemplified by the fact that absolute executive, legis-
lative, and judicial powers are combined in the person of the king. He,
in turn, governs by decree, unchecked, without any oversight or balance
mechanisms in place, or any other autonomous regulatory institution.
In these circumstances, a succession mechanism that can be relied upon
to deliver a sane ruler is clear enough.21 This raises the following ques-
tion: when the currents of history shift, when contesting forces arise,
what Islamic statecraft can be practised by such a ruler? In the contem-
porary world, Saudi kings must satisfy the aspirations of a population
that is doubling every twenty years, and which is now nearing 30 mil-
lion. Half of these people are under twenty-five, and therefore need
concrete education and employment if they are to acquiesce to the
present political arrangement.22 The kings must also reckon with the
rising ambition of Iran and the perception that it is fighting proxy wars
through Shi’ite surrogates. They must also consider that the backing of
the United States is no longer to be taken entirely for granted. And they
must deal with the currents of Wahhabi thought manifesting beyond its
borders, which took political form in al-Qaida and, more dangerously,
DA’ISH, who regard the ‘freeing’ of the Land of the Holy Cities as a
paramount strategic duty. In the lull that followed the Soviet withdrawal
from Afghanistan, this developed, over several decades, into a long-term
plan among radical groups to establish power (tamkin) and dominion
over The Hijaz and use it as the centre of an idealized ‘Islamic state’.23
  That goal was taken up, twenty years later, by the organization
whose name has changed as its ambitions have grown: DA’ISH. This  

20
 INTRODUCTION
theatrical neo-medievalism, a term that we shall explain later, was the
natural child of al-Qaida and the US neoconservatives: the former
intent on driving US soldiers and oilmen from the bilad al-haramayn;
the latter on distributing them more widely throughout the greater
Mesopotamian region. The upshot of the 2003–11 US occupation of
Iraq has been a war of all against all, the staging of a Hobbesian thought
experiment, in which few political programmes beyond military attri-
tion can be contemplated by most of the protagonists. There is one
exception: DA’ISH.
  DA’ISH’s neo-medievalism includes sweeping plans for the
Caliphate—a vision that has proved to have great appeal for those
inclined towards political and religious violence, and perhaps those
who feel persecuted. Among those plans is a policy, announced in May
2015, to divide Saudi Arabia into five administrative districts. On
24 May 2015 the Saudi Ministry of Interior felt the need to issue a
 

statement rejecting the proposal. As Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity

comes under scrutiny, so does the status of The Hijaz within it. This is
the terrain that much of the fighting is actually and symbolically about.
  Given the historical importance of The Hijaz in the formation of the
modern Middle East and the ultimate fate of Islamic political institu-
tions, we ponder its afterlife. Does The Hijaz influence Islamic or
Middle Eastern discourse even after it has disappeared? What, in par-
ticular, are the roles of historical and contemporary Hijazi conscious-
ness and political aspiration in shaping a form of Islamic state in gen-
eral? Islamic collective action, such as the neo-medievalist agenda to
take over The Hijaz? There are two interesting challenges that flow
from such thinking: (1) a historical argument for a right to self-deter-
mination given the principal role of The Hijaz in forming the ‘Arab
state’ and as a founding member of the League of Nations; and (2) an
Islamic dimension of viewing the Holy Land, or at least access to it, as
the right of all Muslims. We therefore examine the relationship
between the idea of Arab ethnicity, ‘a Hijaz people’, and the structures
of Islamic government: the Caliphate.
  More dynamically, The Hijaz offers a fresh vision of Islamic gover-
nance and law as a positive force for political reform, both in the Middle
East and for its interactions with the wider world. This allows us to
comprehend the disruptive impact of the Westphalian sovereign state-

21
 THE HIJAZ
hood and the Enlightenment notion of self-determination, which pre-
cluded the development of a genuine practice of Islamic statecraft as the
source of tenets of collective identity and of statesmanship in the Arab
hemisphere. While these concepts were recognized as tools of Western
imperial influence and control, they were, in an act of self-imprison-
ment, embraced by successive generations of Arab leaders as unshakable
foundations of the emerging Arab and broader Islamic polity.
  The alternative vision re-routes Islamic governance in the history
and untapped potential of The Hijaz, the first state of Islam in Makkah
and Medina. This vision extends from governance in Saudi Arabia, the
Arabian Peninsula, and the Islamic community as a whole, and its inter-
action with the wider world. It rejects the appropriation of Islamic
governance and the concept of an Islamic state and of the Caliphate by
the postmodern, non-territorial doctrines of al-Qaida, and, equally, by
the neo-medievalist DA’ISH, based on the absolute and abhorrent con-
trol over territory and people under the false flag of Islamic doctrine.
  The history of The Hijaz as the original form of Islamic governance
and statehood offers a more modern critical engagement with the clas-
sical doctrines of Westphalian statehood and of self-determination in
the Middle Eastern context, and a fuller understanding of the distorted
ideology advanced to justify the actions of al-Qaida and DA’ISH. It  

recaptures key elements and legitimate Islamic policy principles of

public good, and applies them to the contemporary world.

Modern Literature on The Hijaz

In deepening its engagement with the contemporary literature on the
seminal events that changed the course of history at the heart and sym-
bolic epicentre of the Middle East, this book engaged, discussed, and
encompassed views and perspectives from a series of important recent
accounts. These will appear in several sections of the book. However,
some, which played an instrumental role in deconstructing the modern
perspectives on the region and the variations of history, pointed to
valuable material, and significantly assisted this research, will be men-
tioned selectively in this section.
  Contemporary Hijaz literature has been cut, divided, formed, and
reborn in the same way that Arabia and the wider Middle East itself

22
 INTRODUCTION
today was formed and influenced—by politics, military, foreign inter-
vention, and faith.
  For the integrity of the material and to police the intellectual history
of fields in humanities and social studies, it was imperative to look not
only at archives but at popular references in Arabic as well as academic
outputs of Western scholars and institutions. Some may see such an
analysis of The Hijaz as a ‘welcomed revisionism’, while others may see
it as bridging the truths of two literary traditions: an essential resource
to offset the failings of archival theory in confronting the colonial his-
tory with respect to such issues as the Palestinian question or the Taif
massacre at the hands of the Wahhabi military, and the role of non-state
actors more broadly in the spectrum of historical war crimes, such as
the Holocaust against Jews, the genocides in Armenia and Greece, and
so on.
  One of the most essential sources was the Political Encyclopaedia of
The Hijaz, Mawsu’at al-Siyasi al-Hijaz.
  The 2016 centennial celebrations of the Arab Revolt provided a
good opportunity for academic scholars to take on this important his-
toric moment. This was predominantly due to Jordanian efforts as the
final guardians of the Revolt’s legacy. Israel had its share of such litera-
ture, in the book by Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, A Century of Arab Politics:
From the Arab Revolt to the Arab Spring.
  The treatment of The Hijaz through the prism of the Arab Revolt is
a nuanced undertaking. The late Jordanian minister and historian Kulaib
Al Fawaz wrote his revealing book in Arabic, al-Murasalat al-Mutabadala
bayn al-Sharif al-Husayn ibn ‘Ali wa al-‘Uthmaniyyin [Correspondence
exchanged between Sharif al-Hussein bin ‘Ali and the Ottomans 1908–
1918], which was published and distributed by the Jordanian Ministry
of Culture in 2016.
  This centennial work showed how some academics concentrated on
the relationship between the Sharifs of Makkah, particularly Sharif
Hussein, and the British, while others focused on the Sharifs’ relations
with the Ottomans, both dominated by the Arab Revolt. However, they
scarcely—if at all—looked at academic records dealing with those
relationships via original correspondence. Indeed, Arabic academic
endeavours are slow at best—including in Jordan, where the informa-
tion is abundantly available.

23
 THE HIJAZ
  The first two decades of the twentieth century marked a watershed,
because of the breakdown of the long-standing traditional regional
powers and the emergence of new global powers and institutions,
which affected nascent nationalist movements and the crystallization of
ideology and intellectual political currents in Arab countries. Indeed,
it was The Hijaz that had the most impact, via the influential role of
Sharif Hussein. It was also an important period for the history of the
rulers of Makkah, which has not been studied adequately by either
Western or Arab scholars. It was essential to cover this period and
attempt to fill this gap in the literature in a balanced and thorough
manner. This fast-paced period, with all of its controversies, had a
direct impact on the situation in The Hijaz and the Ottoman Empire.
  Resources and references that relate to The Hijaz and the Revolt
include the accounts of those who lived the period of the Arab Revolt
such as Amin Said’s al-Thawra al-Arabiyya al-Kubra [The Great Arab
Revolt], Asrar al-Thawra al-Arabiyya al-Kubra wa Ma’sat al-Sharif Husayn
[The secrets of the Great Arab Revolt and the agony of Sharif al-Hus-
sein], and Thawrat al-‘Arab fi al-Qarn al-‘Ishrin [Revolution of the Arabs
in the twentieth century]; also the work of Suliman al-Musa, al-Haraka
al-Arabiyya [The Arab Movement], and al-Murassalat al-Tarikhiyya 1914–
1918 [The historical correspondence 1914–1918];the Revolt historian
Zain Nour al-Din Zain, Asbab al-Thawra al-Arabiyya al-Kubra [The causes
of the Great Arab Revolt] and al-Sira‘ al-Duwali ‘ala al-Sharq al-Awsat
[The international contest over the Middle East]; and Bakr Faiq Sawaf,
al-‘Alaqat bayn al-Dawla al-‘Uthmaniyya wa Iqlim al-Hijaz [The relation-
ship between the Ottoman State and The Hijaz Province]. Personal
memoirs proved very important sources, as they tended to include
details that were not available elsewhere. Among the most notable ones
are King Abdullah’s, which include accounts of his father, The Hijaz, and
the Ottomans, as well as those of Jamal Pasha al-Safah, General Jafar
al-Askari, General Ahmad Kadri, Tahseen al-Askari, and Faiz al-Ghaseen.
In addition, of course, there are the famous Orientalist memoirs of
T. E. Lawrence, The Seven Pillars ofWisdom, and those of St John Philby.
   

  Arab scholars often relied on a certain number of Western sources

such as Sultan Abdulhmaid and the Sharifs of Mecca 1850–1900, by Butrus
Abu Manneh, and two additional sources on The Hijaz that loom large:
Le Hedjaz dans la Guerre Mondiale by Édouard Bermond, and

24
 INTRODUCTION
D. G. Hogarth’s Hejaz before World War I. Another source that is usually
   

relied on is Ernest C. Dawn’s From Ottomanism to Arabism.

 

  Periodicals were often used in such discourse, predominantly al-

Qibla, which was the official outlet for the Arab Revolt and the govern-
ment of The Hijaz. Secondly, it was a verified and documented source.
Finally, no account of the Kingdom of Hijaz would be realistic or accu-
rate without a reference to Umm al-Qura. The eight-volume Dar al-Ward
was very insightful.
  The archival documents on The Hijaz have remained problematic
since its dissolution. Those in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan, the Hashemite
inheritors of The Hijaz, were scattered. Saudi sources tend to naturally
suggest that both the British and Ottoman archives were biased in their
accounts. This is an unfortunate situation, but it is a great opportunity
for an archival theorist to address the modern Middle East and Islamic
contemporary history.
  Nevertheless, the Ottoman archives in Istanbul which are kept in
the International Institute for Nationalist and Socialist Studies in al-
Mustansiriyya University, were for a long time an essential source for
Arab researchers on Ottoman Hijaz.

The UK National Archives

A pilot research project using The Index to the Correspondence of the
Foreign Office for the years 1923–6, held at the British National Archives
and preserved by the Public Record Office in London, yielded a rich
body of information surrounding The Hijaz. This search was expanded
to include events of the controversial Taif Massacre. This research began
with a keyword search using the term Taif (referenced as ‘Taif: capture
of, by Wahabis. E7709/7624/91.–See further Hedjaz (Wahabi Raid)’).
Spelling variations and alternatives included Hedjaz, Saud, and Wahabi,
Nejd, etc., as well other significant terms such as Ta’if, al-Taif, and so
on. Some of these records cite other archives or terms pertinent to
these important events. These resources were used to further expand
the research. In this fashion, we have amassed approximately eighty
records with potential relevance to this particular research area.
  The significance of some of the resources found during initial key-
word search was not always apparent from the outset. What we have

25
 THE HIJAZ
found from a closer inspection of the actual records, however, is that
more can be learned about the British coverage of events during the
periods building up to the capture of Taif. There are various kinds of
records held at the Archives, including correspondence between offi-
cers stationed in The Hijaz and British headquarters; correspondence
between Ibn Saud and British officials; media coverage of announce-
ments in Britain and British colonies at the time; military telegrams
requesting aid during the events of the raid, to list but a few. In some
instances, figures directly involved in the events were also identified.
Nonetheless, further investigation into the contents of these records is
still needed, beyond the scope of this volume. The large body of infor-
mation available, in addition to the limited access to these records,
beyond the National Archives, makes for a useful and rewarding project
that could benefit from digitization. Furthermore, considering the
crucial information uncovered, and the far-reaching significance of this
period for the history of The Hijaz, Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, and
Islam, one would only hope that more Ph.D. dissertations and aca-
 

demic investigations on the topic will be inspired and prompted.

  To assist future researchers, further archival references can be found
in the following indices available at the British National Archives,
through targeted research:
• Index to the Correspondence of the Foreign Office for the Year 1923 (now
preserved in the Public Record Office, London). Published by Kraus-
Thomson Organization Limited, Nendeln/Liechtenstein, 1969. By
arrangement with Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London.
• Index to the Correspondence of the Foreign Office for the Year 1924 (now
preserved in the Public Record Office, London). Published by Kraus-
Thomson Organization Limited, Nendeln/Liechtenstein, 1969. By
arrangement with Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London.
• Index to the Correspondence of the Foreign Office for the Year 1925 (now
preserved in the Public Record Office, London). Published by Kraus-
Thomson Organization Limited, Nendeln/Liechtenstein, 1969. By
arrangement with Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London.
• Index to the Correspondence of the Foreign Office for the Year 1926 (now
preserved in the Public Record Office, London). Published by Kraus-
Thomson Organization Limited, Nendeln/Liechtenstein, 1969. By
arrangement with Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London.

26
 INTRODUCTION
The Role andValue of Modern Secondary Sources
Given the volatile history of the region, not much light has been shed
on this era in contemporary Arab studies, and the period has not ben-
efited from in-depth study or analysis. Some tried to focus on the Arab
Revolt narrative, while others concentrated on diminishing the value
of the Revolt. More importantly, the Revolt served, in some ways, as a
maze in which historians and scholars became lost, overlooking in the
process the state that gave birth to it.
  We will not attempt here a full review of the literature; the sources
are discussed in context, and referred to comprehensively in the manu-
script. However, we will close this section with a quick overview and
a selective mapping of some key (sometimes unconventional) resources
that helped inform, shape, and guide this work.
  To begin with, Clive Leatherdale’s 1983 account of British–Saudi
relations and how these unfolded over time—especially after the First
World War—was pivotal;24 not least in terms of facilitating a better
understanding of how far and how deep the effects and implications of
British imperial manoeuvrings were in the seminal years that largely
defined the socio-political context of the present-day Middle East,
Saudi Arabia, and the status of The Hijaz. In describing, through a
dynamic politico-historical lens, the shifting designs of the British,
Leatherdale’s analysis is both penetrating and revealing. It highlights
that, as much as one needs to understand the micro-local and regional
dynamics, one must always study these in tandem with the Great
Powers’ respective interests, stances, and signals. Turning to an inter-
esting, more contemporary account, Askar al-Enazy’s 2010 mono-
graph The Creation of Saudi Arabia came as a welcome addition to the
literature in this complicated field.25 In particular, it represents a more
balanced revisionism, coming from a Najd-born Saudi scholar, on the
events that unfolded in the critical 1914–27 period which saw a world
war, with The Hijaz playing an important part on the side of the Allies,
a fervour of imperial power politics and calculations in the Middle
East, and the birth and then abrupt end of the Hijazi Kingdom. The
work of William Ochsenwald was also a pivotal mine of information,
analysis, and a key perspective. His book Religion, Society and the State
in Arabia26 was a core background resource as it provided a thorough
Western perspective in terms of The Hijaz’s religious, economic,

27
 THE HIJAZ
legal, and political history, which facilitated this book’s subsequent
analysis of the next century of Islamic and Hijazi evolution across
these levels. His 2009 chapter on the annexation of The Hijaz was also
particularly relevant, and introduced an interesting perspective.27 The
2008 account by Polly Mohs, Military Intelligence and the Arab Revolt,
had dual value.28 Not only did it map the key information exchanges
in the 1913–17 context, it also pointed to a series of resources and
material first published in Mohs’s account. This cross-testing of
resources and archival evidence, especially between Arabic and
Western texts, was greatly facilitated by Mohs’s detailed records of all
the archival sources and material she had consulted and incorporated
in her highly detailed study. One of Mohs’s underlying arguments
vis-à-vis the Arab Revolt and its success has been the paramount
importance of intelligence-led policy and true regional expertise in
achieving asymmetric gains through the targeted use of irregular
guerrilla forces—an argument which expanded the traditional scope
and shed further light on the role of the diplomatic–intelligence insti-
tutions, channels, and, ultimately, key individuals of the period.29
  A deep, critical, and insightful account of the role of the Arab
Bureau in Cairo in the critical 1916–20 timeframe was provided by
Bruce Westrate.30 Westrate’s 1992 monograph with its great detail and
penetrating analysis of the imperial calculations, divide-and-rule
‘ploys’, and ‘plays’ of the Great Powers, was a useful Western source
for this analysis. Beyond its important immediate value, its extensive
archival references and primary sources, including the important dip-
lomatic correspondences of the period, were also of particular value.
Timothy Paris, in his 2003 account, Britain, the Hashemites and Arab Rule
1920–1925, provides a critical analysis of Britain’s role in The Hijaz
and the broader region since 1914. Paris provides, overall, an impor-
tant Western perspective and an insightful account on both King
Hussein and Prince Faisal, detailed records on the British–Hijazi
exchanges, the different promises, the shortcomings and limitations on
all sides.31 What is particularly interesting, and valuable from an aca-
demic point of view, is that Paris dynamically covers several levels of
analysis, interchanging very aptly between individual portraits and
personas (the individual level of analysis) and the different institu-
tions—diplomatic and political—as well as the broader dynamics and
the often competing local–regional and imperial interests.

28
 INTRODUCTION
 Another account complementing this new wave of historical revi-
sionism is Madawi Al-Rasheed’s 2010 re-examination of the seminal
events that saw the rise of Ibn Saud and the fall of The Hijaz and Sharif
Hussein.32 Al-Rasheed openly criticizes the challenging—if not danger-
ous—aspects of the Wahhabi component that came to be mainstreamed
through the Wahhabbi–Saudi alliance and the joint Ibn Saud–Ikhwan
action, operations, and military activity. In her account, Al-Rasheed
highlights the bitter warfare, factional and tribal dynamics, and the mas-
terful use of religion by Ibn Saud, along with religious fundamentalism’s
negative implications, as well as the role of foreign interventions, impe-
rial dealings and calculations, and regional interference either with mili-
tary and financial support, or with realpolitik manoeuvres.
  Joshua Teitelbaum’s seminal 2001 account The Rise and Fall of the
Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia has been an important resource.33 Teitel­
baum provides context and background analyses, as well as an in-depth
political portrait and critical study of Sharif Hussein, his aspirations,
role, and political stance throughout the period studied in this book.
Teitelbaum maps and evaluates several pivotal areas, from history and
international politics and relations to tribal and social dynamics, state
structures, legal and administrative issues, the role of the elites, and an
analysis of different layers of statecraft and diplomacy, as well as a
detailed account of the events that shaped the contemporary political
and religious Middle East landscape.
  Joseph Kostiner, in his 1993 account The Making of Saudi Arabia,
1916–1936,34 provides another contemporary Western analysis of how
the creation of present-day Saudi Arabia came about with a focus on the
events that unfolded in the post-Arab Revolt context. Kostiner’s
account is highly informative on British imperial dealings with Ibn Saud
in the period during which the latter expanded his influence and power
in the Arabian Peninsula through a combination of threat, force, tribal
politics, statecraft, and multi-layered diplomacy. Several elements of
his analysis have been discussed and incorporated in this study.
  The accounts of Randall Baker35 and David Howarth,36 even if now
decades old, provided great insights, data, and analysis which informed
this book. They proved of notable diachronic value, and, as the reader
may discern, they are discussed in tandem with more contemporary
accounts. The same is true for Gary Troeller’s very important 1976

29
 THE HIJAZ
account, The Birth of Saudi Arabia, which traces Anglo-Wahhabi relations
since the nineteenth century, focusing its analysis on the Saudi war and
peace manoeuvres and how these were seen, engaged, and accommo-
dated by the British.37 Troeller highlights the nature of the poor desert
region that made up modern-day Saudi Arabia, cross-examining the
toils, wars, struggles, and conflicts that Saudi statesmen had to over-
come to establish the Saudi Arabia of the 1970s. Martin Kramer’s 1986
discussion of the Muslim Congress has proved a valuable resource.38
Ernest Dawn’s detailed and insightful accounts of the historical evolu-
tion of Arab nationalism and ideology have proved particularly useful,39
not only for immediate reference purposes, but also in maintaining a
comparative angle and perspective when processing Arab, Muslim, and
other non-Western accounts detailing the evolution of Arab national-
ism, its relationship to Western concepts and principles, and the evolu-
tion of Arab religious and political ideology in the period studied.
  As a final observation, it is important to state that Western and Arab
or Muslim accounts are engaged in dynamic discussions in many sec-
tions of this monograph. It is deemed that, if anything, this adds value,
shedding light in the different angles, perspectives, analytical prisms,
and diverging (or often similar) viewpoints adopted when studying
these pivotal events and historical developments. Many of the above-
mentioned principally Western sources provided important insights
and comparative elements to consider while processing Arab and
other Muslim perspectives.
  Even though the era studied is now over a century old, the events
and the motives of different actors are far from uncontested, and cer-
tainly are not universally accepted. On the whole, as mentioned above,
this study has found that there is a positive historical revisionism
unfolding, especially in the later part of the past three decades, with a
view to shedding further light onto some of the most pivotal pages of
Arab, Islamic, and, ultimately, global history. We welcomed and
engaged with this new literature as far as this fell within the scope and
remit of this study.

30
 PART I

STATEHOOD: PRE-MODERN
 1

IDEALIZED STATEHOOD

The history of statehood in West Asia and North Africa—and specifi-

cally Islam’s Sacred Territories in western Arabia and the perpetual seat
of its government, commonly known as The Hijaz—must be traced
back to the wider debate surrounding the construction of polities
before the twentieth century. In fact, one has to trace back to the time
where the state ideal finds its roots, almost 1400 years ago. We distin-
guish here between legal and political definitions of statehood. At vari-
ous points in history, the most salient characteristic shared by various
conceptions of the state is the existence of a political community, in a
given geography, under one government. This seems to be a necessary
condition, although not a sufficient one. We are careful about the his-
torical use of the term nationalism. Much of the literature positions
nationalism as a clear political doctrine around the time of the French
Revolution, in 1789, which included popular sovereignty.
  There are several examples of the pre-modern state. These include
the Han Empire, the Greek city-states, the Roman state, the Aztec and
Inca Empires, the Byzantine Empire, and the Italian city-states. One of
the most enduring definitions of statehood came from Marcus Tullius
Cicero, and has been used by many, including Hugo Grotius and Henry
Wheaton. Indeed, states might have existed in antiquity, as David
Bederman argues, but there may be a difference between the ancient
and medieval state and the ‘Westphalian’ state in terms of sovereignty.1

33
 THE HIJAZ
Polities that were militarily or politically formidable but perhaps lacked
the central characteristics of statehood would include those civilizations
established by the Visigoths, Lombards, Franks, Vandals, and Huns.2 The
Frankish Empire (Charlemagne) was surely no less like a state than the
Inca Empire or the Greek city-states. Besides, all of these polities were
very different from each other. Christopher Morris enumerates five
core conditions necessary for a polity to exist as a state; it should be
noted that these are structural rather than legal requirements. For
Morris, a state should possess: (1) a fixed position in space (territorial-
ity); (2) the politics of a public realm (differentiation between private
and public realms); (3) institutionalized political organizations (continu-
ity independent from specific leaders or other individuals); (4) a multi-
plicity of governmental tasks and activities (multifunctionalism); and (5)
be based on legitimizing authority structures.3
  One of the most significant and widely used explanations of the
modern state comes from Max Weber, who focuses on the process of
‘routinization’ in Politics as aVocation and The Theory of Social and Economic
Organization. He defines the state as follows: ‘A state is compulsory
political association with continuous organization whose administrative
staff successfully upholds a claim to the monopoly of legitimate use of
force in the enforcement of its order within a given territorial area.’4
  Academically, there is no consensus on defining the term state
(statehood) in a political or historical sense, nor in the particular tech-
nical sense of international law.5 Clyde Barrow, for instance, argues that
‘the central problem at the analytic level of state theory is to define
what range of phenomena are encompassed by a concept of the state’.6
He continues: ‘There are many different, sometimes overlapping and
often incompatible concepts of the state prevalent in the theoretical
literature.’7 In this instance, while there are both external and internal
perspectives on the political organization of society, the question
becomes about worldview. There is indeed a tension between the
‘international relations’ of the Westphalian nation-states and the
Eastern idea of the Muslim ‘collectivity’.
  There are pitfalls in tracing the evolution of the concept of the state
and, in particular, the role of Islam in the development thereof. One
to watch out for is that the modern notion of ‘state’ that we take for
granted as being natural and ideal—partly because of Weber—was

34
 IDEALIZED STATEHOOD
not in operation at any point during early Prophetic times. However,
the later Ottoman state took on the features of a modern state, more
so than the early Islamic state had. In other words, it is critical to
monitor the nuances of statehood so that we may not mistakenly think
teleologically about the trajectory of Islamic ‘state’ development. This
means trying to trace the transformation of emic8 notions about the
relationship between the concepts of governance, law, religion, jus-
tice, patronage, and history. Etic9 conceptualizations of the state, and
its association with governance, law, religion, and so forth, will be
helpful, especially as we trace the mental constructs Western scholars
build to understand how Islamic history works, while making sure not
to let scholarly analytic paradigms impose themselves on Muslim
worldviews. Probably neither the first caliphs in the seventh century
nor even the later pre-modern ones would understand what we mean
by the word ‘state’ today. It is doubtful that they would understand the
word at all. The same would be true of the Shi’ite scholars or elite.
Dawla, a central concept to the propaganda of groups such as neo-
medievalists, referred to the rising fortune of a household, not the
apparatus of government. Ultimately, this is a matter of policing the
boundaries between epistemologies. After all, the ideal of the past is
but a foreign country, or ‘state’.

The Birth and Evolution of Statehood from The Hijaz

The Hijaz held a central place during the formative years of Islam. Its
claim to pious centrality is based on its importance as the sacred land,
in Makkah, where the Prophet Mohammad was born and began his
teaching, and as the seat of government for the first Islamic state in
Medina. Even before the birth of Islam, The Hijaz incubated the legacy
of the ancient Quraysh tribe of the Prophet Mohammad, and Ishmael
before him. Throughout their history, the Quraysh were guided by the
concepts of unity, justice, and collective annual trade journeys north of
The Hijaz, to the Levant, and the Winter Journey to Yemen in the south
of The Hijaz:10
At the dawn of the 6th Century, the Quraysh were the dominant tribe
in Arabia. The unprecedented proliferation of trade, science, and arts
heralded by the dawn of Islam thrust the Quraysh to a position of inter-

35
 THE HIJAZ
national prominence. To this day, the Quraysh occupy a special place in
the Arab and Muslim collective consciousness, revered for their inimi-
table contribution to the development of codes, alliances and practices
that continue to shape our world. However, even before being elevated
to such lofty heights, the Quraysh were known throughout pre-Islamic
Arabia for their strong legal and business traditions.
In the Quraysh experience, the three guiding elements of unity, justice
and collective action constituted a comprehensive worldview. Trade,
cultural and religious festivals, and the need to co-exist with one’s
neighbors in The Hijaz and beyond, all demanded collaboration, effi-
cient communication, and equitable legal conventions. This in turn laid
the foundation for interdependence, and unity.11
  Through the Quraysh, the fertile ground for Islam was set in Makkah
and The Hijaz. The ‘golden age’ of Islam also evolved in The Hijaz, and
it is believed to be the place where the most authentic statecraft can be
extracted and recaptured from the Prophet Mohammad’s12 religious–
political statesmanship, as well as that of his successors. It was here
where the implementation of Shari’a law, statecraft, rulership, gover-
nance, and Islamic values and principles made the traditional Islamic
state great during its ‘Hijaz era’.
  The status of Makkah, moreover, exceeds its given location as the
economic centre of Arabia; it is its trade and commercial position that
is crucial both before and after Islam.13 The beginning of the Prophet
Mohammad’s mission and the revelation he received in Makkah allowed
for interaction with the old Bedouin tribal community structures and,
simultaneously, triggered the practical and core steps towards the
Islamic state enterprise. The ‘Makkan era’ is distinguished mainly as a
mission, inviting people to embrace monotheism and reject polytheism,
carried out in the spirit of tolerance and forgiveness.14 Nonetheless,
during the Makkan period, which lasted for thirteen years, the Prophet
and his followers suffered ill treatment and were prevented from prac-
tising their beliefs openly; some were forced to migrate to Abyssinia to
preserve their beliefs. Although the Prophet Mohammad was descended
from the most prestigious Quraysh Makkan tribe, Hashem, his
Hashemite roots were not enough to fend off increasing pressure from
other leaders of Makkah who considered him an existential threat to
their hegemony, leadership, and economic interests.

36
 IDEALIZED STATEHOOD
  The Prophet attracted those poor and needy who believed in his
teaching and holy messages, and so can be considered the first follow-
ers of Islam. These disciples would later play an essential role in con-
structing an independent, strong community. After a long period of
harassment, persecution, and lack of freedom in Makkah, the Prophet
set out on his migration to Medina, known as the Hijra. Accordingly,
he did not assume a position of political leadership in Makkah, and
Muslims did not represent an independent political community during
that time since there was no safe territory to pursue such authority.15
  Certainly, the very core of the Islamic state can be traced to the
period before Hijra, in particular to the first bay‘a (pledge of allegiance)
where a number of people from Medina came to Makkah and sought
out the Prophet Mohammad. Here, they swore to submit to Islam, not
to steal, nor commit fornication, nor kill their children,16 not to slan-
der, and not to disobey him in something he forbade.17 Later, this was
followed by another oath of allegiance, known as ‘the pledge of war’.
This came when ‘Ubada ibn al-Samit18 said: ‘We pledged allegiance to
the Messenger of God, “the pledge of war”, on compliance and obedi-
ence in our hardship and ease, and in our times of activation and aver-
sion …’.19 Consequently, the first bay‘a indicates that they accepted the
Faith and would follow it; while the second gives the Prophet
Mohammad, as leader and arbitrator, authority over them, and confers
rights, as well as an obligation of compliance and obedience.

—  Medina: ‘Territoriality’
The Prophet Mohammad selected Yathrib (the original name of
Medina) as the new centre for the Islamic polity. It was named Medina
(civitatis), indicating its civil future with the coming of the age of the
Prophetic migration. This choice was based on several factors: its geo-
graphical location, living conditions, resources, and the demographic
and multi-ethnic composition. However, it is also believed that the
absence of political leadership in Medina20 strengthened the Prophet’s
decision to choose it for the new community.21 Although Medina at
that time was by no means as strong or central as Makkah in terms of
geopolitical positioning, the Prophet’s Hijra to Medina came as a start-
ing point for a new era that saw the eventual development of a strong-
hold in The Hijaz to compete with Makkah.

37
 THE HIJAZ
  In Medina, Islam functioned in various spheres. It went beyond spiri-
tuality, effectively establishing civic functions in all spheres of life.
Revelation in Medina became more detailed during that era, and the
Prophet Mohammad’s political leadership became more widely recog-
nized by other actors beyond The Hijaz. The state—in the strict sense of
political organization—had never been known in Arabia before Islam,
save for stories of several kingdoms in the north and far south ‘once
upon a time’. Thus, the Islamic state was first established in The Hijaz in
622 CE. It was unique in that this Hijaz state had no precursors or
 

neighbours in Arabia relevant to how it later interacted with other states

outside Arabia, or to how its relationship with other political communi-
ties was theorized. It is a distinguishing marker and unprecedented
model of statehood in Arabia and, arguably, the oldest in its history.
Although the Prophet may not have intended at that time to found a
multi-faith, multi-ethnic state or empire, he had been keen to establish
and implement laws for a collectivity in this unified emerging society,
inviting people in the surrounding areas to embrace the faith, and to
defend the new umma in every way possible. The numbers within the
new community grew as more tribes embraced Islam. During this
period, the law known as Shari’a22 was progressively being revealed to
efficiently organize public and private affairs, as well as clarifying social
and legal relationships between Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In so
doing, the Prophet was practising a form of political and religious
authority that reinforced a higher standard of statecraft, Shari’a law, and
community development within the boundaries of a territory.
  From these early beginnings one can see how the Islamic state in
Medina possessed all the necessary pillars of statehood: citizenship of a
state which included the Ansar (the natives of Medina),23 the Muhajirun
(the Quraysh emigrants from Makkah),24 and the Jewish community.25
The territory of the state consisted of Yathrib and its surrounding
localities in The Hijaz. The political organization of the state was based
on Shari’a law, which the Prophet was entrusted to legislate and imple-
ment among the umma, under his general leadership of the entire popu-
lation of Medina.
  This does not mean that there were no internal or external political
challenges to the state of Medina in its early stages. However, the
Prophet utilized multi-layered statecraft beyond revelation to handle

38
 IDEALIZED STATEHOOD
these political challenges and integrate the societal actors in an alliance
under his command.
  Consequently, the Prophet, in addition to his religious mission and
statesmanship as an arbiter in Medina, successfully crafted an inclusive
social contract for the community; one that was based on legal prin-
ciples and rights and obligations when he issued the Constitution of
Medina.

— The Constitution of Medina

The history of Arabia before the establishment of the Islamic state in
Medina was dominated by long-standing ethnic and inter-tribal con-
flicts and feuds. The arrival of the Prophet Mohammad in Medina came
in response to an invitation by the tribal chiefs of Yathrib (renamed al-
Madina al-Munawara upon his arrival), who were involved in a dispute,
to arbitrate and function as a chief judge–mediator. They welcomed his
migration from Makkah to Medina, along with his message the trans-
formation of Medina into dar al-hijra (the land of migration), which
took place in 622 CE. In the first few months, the Prophet creatively
 

initiated two major social contracts or agreements.26 The first of these

was al-Mu’akha (the agreement of brotherhood) between the Muhajirun
and the Ansar, in order to establish and strengthen relations within a
potentially fragmented society. It allowed the emigrants to be consid-
ered one of the clans of Medina and the Prophet their head.
  The second document was the Wathiqa or Constitution of Medina,
which was a social contract that governed and organized the nexus of
relations between the natives living in Medina, including the Quraysh
Muhajirun, the Ansar,27 and the Jews. The Constitution of Medina
addressed essential points, such as defining the nature of the state. For
instance, at the very beginning, the Constitution clearly lists those who
were parties to it, notably ‘Muslims and believers’, but also ‘their
dependent non-Muslims’ who followed them and ‘were attached to
them’ and ‘who fought along with them’. In article 2, the Constitution
defines this unified community, ‘a single “umma”, distinct from (other)
people’.28 The Constitution, by way of crafting the state, recognized the
tribal nature of the loyalties, values, and traditions of those parties. It
preserved the status quo of each tribe, and thus their internal solidarity

39
 THE HIJAZ
and relations were legally recognized, as can be observed in articles 3
through 10. The greatest innovation the Prophet Mohammad provided
in the Constitution was a reform and modification mechanism of certain
aspects of social relations, such as the replacement of tribal bigotry
founded on kinship and blood relations with the idea of citizenship and
the nation-like umma. In other words, the Prophet was developing a
worldview of a collective beyond the tribe, achieved by integrating all
tribes into a new community, to which was delegated the resolution of
conflicts and enhanced peace and societal integration.
  Article 13 is another provision of the Constitution worth noting. It
ties in with the idea of the objectives of law in statecraft by introducing
the principle of justice in its strictest sense: ‘The pious believers shall
act against the unjust or the oppressive among them, including those
who encourage injustice, sin, hostility or corruption among believers;
their hands, all, are against him; even if he is a son of one of them.’29
  According to Mohamad Salim al-Awwa30 the Constitution of Medina
provides the basic principles of the state, including citizenship, wherein
Islam became the basis for citizenship and replaced the tribal and ethnic
ties that were dominant before Islam. Curiously, citizenship was lim-
ited to those Muslims who lived in Medina, where the territoriality of
the state extended—thereby excluding the Muslims who were resi-
dents of Makkah.31 Furthermore, the Constitution of Medina also
recognized the citizenship rights of non-Muslims. Article 25 provides:
‘To the Jews their religion and to the Muslims their religion.’ Many
other articles also point to rights and duties of Jews.32 Therefore, we
would argue, if citizenship was limited to those in Medina, and if non-
Muslims had citizenship rights, surely the basis of citizenship was ter-
ritorial rather than belief in Islam.
  Another important element of statecraft that features in the
Constitution of Medina is the recognition of the Prophet Mohammad
as the head of the state, with political authority and jurisdiction over its
inhabitants. Article 23 states: ‘Wherever there is anything about which
you may differ, it is to be referred to God and Mohammad for a deci-
sion.’ Likewise, Article 42 makes reference to God and Mohammad in
cases of calamity affecting the community, meaning that in the case of
real danger or existential threats to the state, citizens are required to
turn to the Prophet Mohammad for guidance, as the head of the state.
One of the most ‘modern’ state laws and principles found in the

40
 IDEALIZED STATEHOOD
Constitution is the idea of permission to travel, conditioned by what is
known today as an ‘exit visa’. Article 36 of the Constitution of Medina
prescribes the requirement to seek permission to leave Medina from
Mohammad in advance of any trip.33
  The political authority of the Prophet was centred on a well-defined
territory as well as firm control over its borders, full effective political
organization of the state, and a solid constitutional and justice system.
Al-Awwa asserts that the Constitution included principles of justice
and equity,34 as well as other articles containing legal and criminal
regulations. In short, the Constitution of Medina represents a high
standard of statecraft in the very early stages of the Islamic state of
Medina. Indeed, such language of legal drafting in 622 CE represents
one of the oldest traditions of the study of constitutions, along with the
Twelve Tables of the Roman Republic and the Code of Hammurabi,
followed by the Magna Carta in 1215 CE, much later than the others.

— The Umma: The Population(s)

The term umma is used several times in the Constitution of Medina to
refer to the new collective body of citizens in Medina (the ‘collectiv-
ity’), as part of a single nation, territorially defined, comprising
Muslims and others. At the same time, the term also refers to the
multiplicity of tribal and faith groups as a nation in and of itself; with
member/social groups to the social contract forming parts of the
larger collective nation. These ‘sub-nations’ were guaranteed protec-
tions, rights, and safety. They were only able to conclude or enter into
agreements with others through the collective nation or umma, thereby
institutionalizing the collective worldview.
  Although populations of modern states are primarily defined by their
nationality, the umma, in the Muslim community worldview, transcends
normative concepts such as nationalities and ‘temporalities’, as the
Muslim umma is seen as universal in its essence.35 Some may infer that the
umma cannot be properly reconciled with the idea of the sovereign
nation-states, but we do not agree with this, as we shall discuss later.
  After institutionalizing the state of Medina internally and ensuring
its stability, effectiveness, and acknowledged power in The Hijaz—and
by extension in the whole of Arabia—the Prophet turned his attention

41
 THE HIJAZ
to diplomatic relations and concluding treaties with other actors,
instead of defensive military action. The Islamic state possessed military
force, as well as increased economic and trade capacity, which came
from Makkah and successful businesses in Medina—factors which were
essential in changing the balance of power in The Hijaz in favour of
Medina and, by extension, the umma’s position. Consequently, Makkah
became less powerful in the face of an organized, dominant, and united
umma in the Islamic state of Medina.
  The quest to reclaim Makkah back into the new Islamic realm was
not a military one in the end. The return to Makkah was extremely
symbolic, and the Prophet Mohammad preferred to enter it without
using force, or committing any act of aggression or vengeance.36 This
non-military campaign worked to demilitarize future relations between
the Quraysh of Medina and Makkah.37 Despite having secured the sup-
port of the chiefs of the Quraysh and the site of God’s Home, the
Prophet was committed to the societal security and integrity of the
umma and to overcome any tribal tensions with his original supporters,
the Ansar of Medina. As the Quraysh of Makkah and the Quraysh
Muhajirun overcame their estrangement and rejoiced upon their return
to their union and original Makkan status, the Prophet appointed a
governor in Makkah, and returned to Medina, the Islamic State capital.
He preferred to die there, among his supporters and those committed
Quraysh companions who were to continue with the venture of Islam
as his successors: the caliphs.
  The Prophet Mohammad’s return from Medina to Makkah and uni-
fication in The Hijaz led to the essential transition of the Islamic com-
munity from the embryonic umma into a united ‘state’ in the strict
sense. This established the worldview we hear and read about today.
The foundational years of this united state, short as they may have
been, are a touchstone for Muslim solidarity, even if the history that
followed was sometimes far from consistent with Islamic state or umma
statecraft principles.

The Dilemma of Successorship and the State: Birth of the Caliphate

The early years following the death of the Prophet Mohammad repre-
sent an important period in the evolution of the state in Medina and
the Islamic faith. The Prophet did not appoint a successor or prescribe

42
 IDEALIZED STATEHOOD
a formal system of government or procedure for his succession. We
shall later see how the juridical effect of the silence of the law in that
regard is a crucial Islamic constitutional doctrine that should be cele-
brated in terms of the objectives of Shari’a. However, the Prophet did
leave a legacy of general principles which operated in tandem with
Shari’a law, such as legislation and the duties of leaders, that represent
the broad normative and positive requirements for statecraft. The
Shari’a objective in the silence of law is directly connected with the
concept of maslaha—public good. The idea of what is public good, and
what ought to be for public benefit, directly correlates with the opera-
tion of policy, recognizing benefit. The public benefit lies in the flexibil-
ity accorded by the silence of law. It recognizes a simple reality: that
the changing nature of societies—in terms of generational needs and
the political, social, and economic developments that follow—do not
provide man-made constitutions with perpetual value. Therefore, con-
stitutions, statecraft, and statesmanship in law are to function by con-
sidering certain defined interests. These interests offer a guiding model
to follow and are conditioned by general principles of the Shari’a, as
well as the ethical, legitimate, and policy values provided by the
Prophet during his leadership of the Medina state.38
  Some interpreted the Prophet’s unusual silence on the question of
succession as being in accordance with tribal traditions that were preva-
lent at that time. Other jurists see it differently. They argue that his objec-
tive was to allow the umma to elect whomever they saw as fit, compatible,
and worthy.39 In that way, Muslims in this constitutional framework
would not be obliged to follow one particular form of constitutional
government. Instead, they would have the liberty to accommodate the
circumstances of any given constitutional moment in order to craft their
state, choose their form of governance, and elect a suitable head to lead
them. This could be referred to as the natural evolution of an organic
silent constitution. It assumes that capable jurists and statesmen are able
to set the requirement at any given historical moment while ensuring
justice, public benefit, the rule of law, and, with an eye on future intel-
lectual moments of humanism, equity between generations.
  Muslim jurists and scholars (known as the ‘ulama’) find that the
justification for the succession of the Prophet Mohammad (the khilafa,
or Caliphate) is based on the third source of Islamic legislation in terms
of the ‘supremacy of norms’, namely ijma‘ (consensus).40 Ijma‘ occur­

43
 THE HIJAZ
red among the Prophet’s companions and the population of Medina
after his death, to elect the new leader of the umma who would oversee
their religious and worldly affairs. An urgent congregation of the lead-
ers and prominent companions took place at Saqifat Bani Sa‘ida, a
historically monumental event and location, after the death of the
Prophet. The Ansar first proposed, and argued for, their right to succes-
sion in the leadership. The Muhajirun protested, and were able to nego-
tiate and convince the Ansar41 that they had the right to the succession
because of the Qurayshi42 requirement and their claim that they were
the first to embrace Islam in Makkah. Al-Mawardi (972–1058), one of
Islam’s earliest writers on government and author of al-Ahkam al-Sul-
taniyya on Islamic governance, explains that:
When al-Ansar defended the succession of Sa‘d ibn ‘Ubada, to whom
they had given allegiance, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq objected to this, and
pointed out what the Prophet said: ‘The Imams are from the Quraysh.’
Subsequently, al-Ansar dismissed the declaration of Sa‘d ibn ‘Ubada to
be the caliph. Moreover, al-Ansar even renounced their claim to share
in the Caliphate in their saying, ‘From among us an Imam and from
among you an Imam,’ in which they accepted and affirmed what Abu
Bakr pointed out about the Qurayshi condition for the Imamate as well
as his statement ‘From us the Emirs, and from among you the Wazirs
(Ministers).’ To that we add, the Prophet’s statement ‘Give precedence
to the Quraysh and do not put others before them.’ Thus, there should
not be any doubt or controversy attached to this impeccable text.43
  Consequently, after careful deliberation, Muslims were able to
choose and give the bay‘a (pledge of allegiance) to Abu Bakr44 as the
first successor45 of the Prophet Mohammad and the first caliph, through
popular consensus.46
  The process of consultation, negotiating, and selecting the successor
to the Prophet was a crucial element in the future of the Islamic state.
It immediately triggered a period of competing tribalism between the
Muhajirun and Ansar, in which each campaigned for the succession.
Al-Awwa asserts that the nomination of Abu Bakr as the first caliph
averted a conflict that, if allowed to linger a little while longer, would
have caused the most dangerous outcome for Islam47 and the nascent
Muslim nation.48
  Some accounts maintain that a disagreement persisted between the
Ansar and the Muhajirun after the election of Abu Bakr. However, events

44
 IDEALIZED STATEHOOD
after Abu Bakr received the bay‘a show that such disagreements had
been put to rest by the time of the pledge. In fact, the Muhajirun and
Ansar worked together, laying the foundations for the next iteration of
the Islamic state, and helped stabilize them under the command of Abu
Bakr. Indeed, Muslims cooperated with the new caliph to re-establish
the state system, restore order, and take up arms against defectors
from central Arabian tribes who were rattled by the death of the
Prophet Mohammad. Most notably, Abu Bakr focused his statecraft
doctrine on establishing the ‘unity of the Arabian Peninsula’ or the
territoriality of Arabia as a state. Abu Bakr’s tenure was defined by what
came to be known as the ‘ridda wars’ on defectors following the
Prophet’s death (632 CE) and the subsequent futuh (conquest).49
  The process of succession, the Prophet’s companions maintained,
should not, and would not, violate the original mission of the Prophet
and his leadership of the state. The caliph, however, would not receive
revelation, nor would he act in the capacity of a prophet.
  The Islamic state, as an Islamic constitutional innovation, only sur-
vived during the time of the Prophet Mohammad and the Rashidun. The
Caliphate, however, continued to evolve dramatically. After Arabia was
consolidated territorially, and after the venture of Islam expanded its
successive political capitals from Medina to Damascus, and later to
Kufa in Iraq and other capitals, the position of The Hijaz and Medina
was confined to the spiritual, as the religious seat. It ceased to be the
influential centre of decision making that it once had been.
  Consequently, throughout history, Islamic political thought refer-
ences the state of Medina as the starting point of serious political dis-
course—historical, jurisprudential, theological, moderate, or radi-
cal—in an attempt to find guidance or credibility for the Prophet and
the Rightly Guided Caliphs or successors. Sucessors developed the
rules of statecraft through innovative statesmanship based on their
understanding of the Shari’a objectives of statecraft that underlie the
Islamic state or Caliphate as a valid Islamic system of governance.

The Jurisprudence of the State: Shari’a and the Objectives of Statecraft

The maqasid or objectives of Islamic law (‘intents of divine legislation’)
were covered briefly in the definition of a state in the introductory

45
 THE HIJAZ
section. The moderate and centrist school of thought rests its under-
standing of Shari’a on the hermeneutics of the objectives of the law.
According to this school, freeing the application of law from the strict
construction of religious scriptures allows a more innovative legal
treatment and an evaluation of the philosophy behind the law, as well
as the intent of the lawgiver. In this regard, Imam al-Shatibi50 and other
classical maqasid jurists point out that the basis for divine precepts is the
preservation of human life, public benefit, and justice. Accordingly,
Shari’a objectives are there to facilitate the affairs of individuals for
their ‘benefit’. Along these lines, Raysuni notes that the objectives
‘serve not to destroy life but to support and nurture it’.51 At the same
time, these objectives should prevent any potential harm. Similarly,
Raysuni states:
There is unanimous agreement among Muslim scholars—regardless of
their varied schools of thought and the various ages in which they
lived—that Islamic Law calls for the preservation of the ‘essentials’,
‘exigencies’, and ‘embellishments’, and that the interests most vital
are: religion, human life, the faculty of reason, progeny, and material
wealth.52
  While existing texts facilitate Muslim scholars’ understanding of
Shari’a objectives, reasoning becomes challenging when there is no
actual law or legal texts addressing particular issues. In this case, some
assert the Islamic jurisprudence rule of permissibility.53 In other
words, the absence of law is a declaration of the permissibility of some-
thing, and thus the freedom to innovate according to public benefit at
any given time or space. Maqasid jurists view this silence as having a
legal objective, and it must be seen in a context of juridical wisdom as
having legal determinacy, not deficiency. the Prophet Mohammad
emphasized that divine legislation has kept silent about certain matters
out of mercy for people and not out of forgetfulness.54
  Al-Awwa gives several examples of the freedom that is given to the
umma, in the silence of the lawgiver, to organize its affairs. The most
important of these are statecraft and the system of government.55
  The abeyance of constitutional norms regarding statehood and state-
craft is arguably the greatest jurisprudential innovation of Shari’a.
Constitutional statecraft is able to stand the test of time and space
because the law is stated in general terms which dictate overarching

46
 IDEALIZED STATEHOOD
legal principles without specifying a particular permanent or preferred
system of government. This generality is, ultimately, for the public
benefit, as it allows the collectivity to develop and adopt the most
appropriate system of government, but remains flexible enough to
permit a change to that system should circumstances necessitate—
whilst remaining Shari’a compliant.

Political–Economic Evolution of the State

It is argued that the futuhat (conquests) in the Levant and Mesopotamia
during Caliph ‘Umar’s reign (the second successor, who was first to
hold the title Commander of the Faithful (amir al-mu’minin) instead of
caliph) defined the institutions of the state (dawla), both in general
terms and in the inception of the larger territorial expansion of dar
al-islam and dar al-harb.56 The second phase of internal statecraft, there-
fore, after the Constitution of Medina, was ‘Umar’s attempt to create
the diwan (or divan: administration system), which was concerned,
during the early stages, with the regulation of soldiers (hence the idea
of a regularized army, who were all paid a salary). The diwan later
received state income from the kharaj (land tax) and jizya (taxes paid
by non-Muslims). The diwan also regulated the state’s share of war loot
and state confiscations, as well as alms taxes, such as the zakat, land
taxes ‘usur al-ard (from within the Peninsula), and trade.
 The diwan and idarat al-dawla (the state administration) continued to
develop from 635 CE, the beginnings of ‘Umar’s government, until the
period of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid in around 800 CE. A fair
 

assessment must accept that there were several important stations in

the historical journey of the development of the state, and its political
and economic dynamics. Two of the most important of these, after
‘Umar’s diwan, were the contributions of the Umayyad caliph ‘Abd al-
Malik ibn Marwan in Damascus. These were (1) the Arabization, cen-
tralization, and localization of the diwans; and (2) the establishment of
an Arabian currency. It could therefore be concluded that the concept
of the state—the inception of its main basic institutions and the regula-
tion of its functions—was completed by the middle of the eighth cen-
tury (740–50 CE).57
  Thus, the developments of the first four centuries (seventh–tenth
centuries CE) specified the perspectives, visions, and practices after the

47
 THE HIJAZ
Rashidun that are to be attributed to the Islamic state and, by extension,
the idea of a Caliphate. In the following centuries, three developments,
which might be labelled statehood ‘shifts’, are particularly notable. The
first was purely constitutional, the second involved political economy.
The third was defined by territorial expansion.
  The ‘Sultanate’ emerged as a result of the rise to power of ethnic
groupings or loyalties on the peripheries of the Islamic state, according
to Roy Mottahedeh.58 The Sultanate later moved militarily to seize the
Abbasid capital, Baghdad, and to acquire a document from the caliph
confirming its ‘legitimacy’. From the eleventh century onwards, a con-
cept not dissimilar to the classical international law principle of uti
possidetis, even if seemingly more expansive,59 called sultat al-istila wa’l-
taghallub (the power of seizure and domination) emerged, along with,
and in some ways under, the formal umbrella of the Caliphate, which
sustained its territory through the idea of caliphal legitimacy. This
meant that there was continuity in preserving centralized regional
unity under the joint auspices of the Caliphate and the Sultanate (the
de facto power). In addition, inspired by the Sultanate’s experience,
new independent or quasi-independent authorities mushroomed dur-
ing that time on the peripheries of the Islamic state, formed by virtue
of commonalities and loyalties. While these ethnic groupings failed to
seize the capital, they attempted to gain legitimacy through the
Caliphate, or to establish rival Caliphates independently, such as the
Fatimids in Morocco and Egypt, the Umayyads in Spain, and the
Muwahhids (Almohads) in the Maghreb.
  The second shift is the emergence of the ‘professional’ army, as
opposed to the volunteer army, which received its endowments from
the diwan. About a hundred years after the first professional armies had
been established, a form of feudalism appeared. High-ranking officers
received their compensation and that of their soldiers from the lands
that were given to them by the state. And with that, the kharaj land-tax
system developed into a system of iltizam, a system akin to feudalism.
The institution of feudalism was strengthened and systemically contin-
ued to consolidate all through the Ottoman era, particularly in the
eastern parts of the Islamic realm.
  The third development is characterized less by the role of state
structure than by transnational relations, and resulted from trade. By

48
 IDEALIZED STATEHOOD
the thirteenth century, foreign trade had achieved economic promi-
nence equal to that achieved by kharaj. This meant that the Islamic state
had to regulate if not control international trade routes, both land and
sea. This shift was achieved less by military conquest than by forging
treaties and conventions. Feudalism, and later on trade, worked con-
currently to expand Islamic statecraft into a more extensive, transna-
tional phenomenon. Ottoman Islamic statehood had real importance
beyond the maintenance of Islamic identity (ethnic or nationalistic
drivers), and overcame tensions of early globalization to achieve larger
economic, scientific, and social civilizational outcomes.

49
 2

INTERNATIONAL ORDER AND THE NATION-STATE

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the characteristics of the

modern nation-state in line with the international legal order. In this
context, the discussion will define the notion and development of the
Islamic state in terms of the umma and Islamic law.
  In this chapter, we describe and re-examine the developments of the
nation in the global order that have shaped and influenced the existen-
tial nature of the feature of national statehood, as well as how scholars
understood such developments and how they dealt with them based on
modern notions of statehood.
  The modern Westphalian notion of the ‘nation-state’ that we take as
a given structure, natural and ideal, is partly because the post-First
World War system was not in operation at any point during the Islamic
Ottoman experience or Persian–Shi’ite imperial times, including the
earlier Safavid project. At best, dawla historically referred to the rising
fortune of a household—not a sense of ‘imagined community’, but
more the creation of the idea of the Islamic apparatus of government.

The Westphalian Sovereign State

In Europe, the modern state system emerged after the Middle Ages
when feudalism was breaking down, industry was emerging, and mass
migration from rural to urban areas resulted in power shifts from the

51
 THE HIJAZ
peripheries to the city centres. Political reorientation was occurring in
western Europe in the seventeenth century, characterized by religious
division between Catholics and Protestants, the development of com-
merce, and the strengthening of states such as England and France.
  Conventional wisdom often holds the genesis of the modern state to
be the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648,1 when a state-centric, sovereignty-
oriented, territorially bounded order took shape.2 However, such
conventional wisdom is ill conceived, as the Treaty of Westphalia,
which took the form primarily of two treaties—Osnabruck and
Münster—contributes very little to understanding the concept of the
state. The Treaty of Westphalia did, however, usher in two important
notions: the idea of ‘a constitutional moment’ for nations; and the con-
cept of ‘sovereignty’. Its focus was to assert the unassailable sovereignty
of almost every principality in Europe, including the power to deter-
mine its own religion.3 If the concept of the state had lacked defini-
tional consensus since the earlier Islamic era, the idea of identifying the
origins and definition of the Islamic—or, for that matter, ethnic—
‘nation-state’ is even more problematic. A minimalist definition would
suggest that the nation-state is simply an imagining of the state along
cultural and ethnic lines, as opposed to, and contrasted with, the multi-
national state, the city-state, empire, and so forth.
  Charting the origins and the development of the nation-state is
often an exercise in de-bunking a series of founding myths. A recent
theory pioneered by Steven Weber situates the origins of the nation-
state as an inadvertent by-product of advancements within the field of
topography.4 Weber discussed the emergence of sovereign states,
rather than nation-states based on ethnic or cultural groups. He found
that new ‘cartographic tools’ shaped how political actors understood
those imagined communities in a political space, authority, and orga-
nization, which reduced them to the unique territorial form of the
sovereign state.5 This argument stands at odds with the prevailing nar-
rative that the nation-state was the product of nineteenth-century
European phenomena, made possible by developments such as state-
directed education, increasing literacy, and the emergence of the mass
media. This theory seems to reinforce the artificiality of the nation-
state as a construct; particularly Benedict Anderson’s idea that nations
are imagined communities.6

52
 INTERNATIONAL ORDER AND THE NATION-STATE
  To better comprehend the puzzle during and after the First World
War—which saw the emergence of numerous ‘modern’ nation-
states—it is critical to understand the ethnically driven concept of the
nation-state. With the advent of colonialism, administrative penetration
by the colonial state had the effect of making ‘created’ or ‘invented’
categories of nationality and ethnicity increasingly real.7 Gerlachlus
Duijzings, for example, considered ethnic markers as the fundamental
defining criteria for states, asserting that there must be ‘unambiguous
delineations of ethnic identity, with clear criteria for inclusion and
exclusion.’8 While these simplifications are inadequate representations
of reality, they are backed by state power, which in turn transforms the
real world in ways that make it more closely resemble the simplified
and legible grid of their observation.9 Katherine Verdery’s analysis
offers an explanation for the ethnically driven enterprise of statecraft.10
She builds her case around the concept of ‘a single identity’; yet this
would seem hardly possible in Khomeini’s Iran, to cite one example, as
we will see in the latter part of this book.11
  In the Arab and Muslim post-First World War context, perhaps this
becomes more discernible when studying the role of religion, as
ambiguous as it may have been, and as different as it was from the
European experience. The region was a part of various empires—
often with multiple power centres—whose borders were blurred; it
was experiencing major political, economic, and historical shifts, as
discussed earlier; and also, Islam favoured the idea of a transnational
Muslim community, an umma, united under the caliph, who possessed
both temporal and spiritual authority. In other words, religion also
had a unifying dimension, a positive influence on social integration
which could be utilized on a genuine journey for state formation and
organization.
  Ultimately, colonialism has also been crucial in the process of state
formation in Arab and Middle Eastern territories. As a result, some
countries such as Egypt and Iraq were recognized as nation-states,
while others, such as Kurdistan or Palestine, were not. Paradoxically,
some of the states that were created were not nations, such as Lebanon,
Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

53
 THE HIJAZ
Islamic Public Interest and the Dawla
The concept of ‘public interest’ here refers to the interest of the whole
umma, which, as previously discussed, comprises ethnic, racial, and
religious citizenship. Muslims, arguably, still maintain a citizenship
affiliation with the umma, and this leads to collective expression (‘imag-
ined community’) in terms of doctrine, intellectual history, and social
psychology. This convergence is known as ‘the Islamic fraternity’.12
  The universal dimension of the umma, beyond the historical notion
in Medina, is prevalent in the Islamic theological message in many
verses of the Qur’an.13 Theoretically, any Muslim is part of the ‘Muslim
nation’, wherever they live. The second caliph, ‘Umar, is said to have
declared that ‘any Muslim on earth has a right to share in what the
Muslim umma gained or collected of booty …’,14 which means that
there is no obligation to be under the territorial jurisdiction of the
Islamic state to be considered under its personal jurisdiction.
  The term nizam al-hukum, rather than umma or dawla, was used to
describe some of the concepts associated with government, statecraft,
and bureaucracy. Terms such as dawla and concepts such as dudman
(royal household), wilayah (authority or governance), and divan (diwan,
as mentioned earlier), among others, were tied to concepts of justice
in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). Persian, Arabic, and Turkish jurispru-
dence focused on good governance and the role of the ruler, imam, or
Commander of the Faithful in that process. ‘Mirrors for Princes’ litera-
ture spoke at length about the importance of organized ministries,
filled with good bureaucrats, as did the literature of al-Ghazali (1058–
1111), al-Mawardi (972–1058), and al-Juwayni (1028–85) on Islamic
governance. The term dawla did not describe this element of gover-
nance, but rather the notion that an organized system of governance
could keep the realm of the imagined community in order, and thereby
the Islamic dawla of the ruler in predominance. It was an old idea, but
hardly the same as the concept of the nation.
  One of the major questions arising in the contemporary Islamic
world in the face of the ‘crises of Islam’ today is whether there is any
contradiction between the unity of Arabs as one nation (pan-Arabism)
and the unity of all Muslims around the world (pan-Islamism). To
answer this question, as we shall attempt in the following chapters, the
history of Arabs and The Hijaz should be considered against others.

54
 INTERNATIONAL ORDER AND THE NATION-STATE
Although Arabs share the same language, customs, and traditions, that
is not the basis of their unity. The main marker for an expanded territo-
rial venture was Islam. In other words, rather than common ethnicity,
it was citizenship through faith that brought their ‘hearts’ together.15 As
has been the case historically, Arabs inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula
have a strong conviction that it was through Islam that they were able
to achieve a unitary polity for the future. Furthermore, Arabs are not
merely seen as part of the umma, but rather as its centre, with respon-
sibility for the Islamic state, as they were distinguished by the fact that
the Messenger came from among them, and that they received revela-
tion in their own language.16
  In due course, as was explained earlier, the collectivity contained
sub-nations with different languages, customs, traditions, and ethnici-
ties, all sharing faith and citizenship. The public interest of the Muslim
collective is not limited to a certain sub-nation; rather, it is a transna-
tional interest. This does not restrict the private interests of any sub-
nations, as long as it does not contradict the public interest of the
umma. From a wider perspective, it has become essential in modern
times for Muslim nations to establish international organizations that
oversee relations between Islamic states and manage their affairs, taking
into consideration the public interest of the umma and Shari’a objec-
tives that prioritize the collective interest of the umma over the interest
of the individual.
  Outside the Arab context, and as a more recent historical marker, it
was not until Ayatollah Khomeini’s seventeen Najaf lectures in 1970,
which collectively formed the handbook Islamic Government17 and its
derivative Islamic experience of 1979 in Iran, that Islamic scholars
distinguished the largely anachronistic discussions of the ideas of sov-
ereignty (Westphalia) from the ideas of nationalism and the nation-
state that emerged much later. Sunni Islamic revivalism (sahwa), influ-
enced by such notions, seems to have found a degree of reconciliation
with the nation-state through Khomeini’s hybridization of (Shi’ite)
Islamic sovereignty, constitutionalism, and the creation of a republican
nation-state.
  All nation-state-building projects are invariably based on a number
of historical and territorial myths and realities, which help define ‘the
community’ (the nation) vis-à-vis ‘the other’ (entities beyond the

55
 THE HIJAZ
nation’s supposed borders), and often the relationship between the
two. Although the modern Iranian state emerged in the early twentieth
century, it is the 1979 Islamic Revolution that gave birth, paradoxically,
to Iran’s current modern constitutional nation-state. It is paradoxical
due to a direct clash between the Islamic notion of the umma on the one
hand and a state based on the territoriality of ‘the nation’ of Iran on the
other. In this regard, the nation-state-building experience of the Islamic
Republic of Iran is both unique and common. It is unique because of
the modern syncretic relationship between religious doctrine and revo-
lutionary populist Iranian nationalism (and, by proxy, the state). It is
common due to the use of dislocative historiography which facilitates
our perception of ‘the nation’.18

Islamic Statehood and Nationalism

We have already covered the dominance, in Islamic statehood, of the
idea of the collectivity and public interest, in explaining the umma. As
the roots of empire were growing, the emergence of the Westphalian
model of nation-states affected two main viewpoints: (a) some saw that
nationalism promoted limited interests and undermined universalism;
and (b) others saw the importance of resolving this nationalist ten-
dency within the Islamic framework in order to promote peoples’
interest and preserve foundational Islamic values.
  For a period, the concept of the dar al-islam (the ‘homeland of
Islam’) was generally seen as analogous to the ‘nation-state’, equating
the umma to the nation and the state to a particular territory. The
homeland was envisaged as consisting of a specific geographical area or
territory, with a significant human presence, and acquired its distinc-
tive features as the result of two ‘tiers’ of interaction. The first is the
individual’s interaction with surrounding communities, while the
interaction between communities and the territory constitutes the
second. Prevailing customs and traditions were constructed as the
product of these interactions. As a result, the homeland contained a
shared history and language (lingua Arabica), based on common under-
standing. It is a framework that provided effective integrity for both the
individual and the community.
  The idea of the nation-state was alien to Muslim scholars, whose
interaction with the concept began with its advent in Europe. The

56
 INTERNATIONAL ORDER AND THE NATION-STATE
adoption of the nation-state construct was the result of a desire to
counter foreign encroachment and intrusion. Muslim rulers were pri-
marily interested in discovering the source of strength of the European
nation-state in addition to the corollary of discovering the reason(s) for
the relative ‘backwardness’ of the Islamic world. Interestingly, this
question did not arise during the time of either the Crusades or the
exodus from Andalusia (Islamic Spain). For instance, in the eleventh
century, the foundational scholar al-Ghazali, and others, in their
responses to the Crusades, were more driven by establishing an indig-
enous reform programme which was not in any way based on any
exogenous components and products. However, in the modern age this
indigenous reform tendency changed completely. It became normal for
any ‘reformer’ to adopt and consider sources of developments in other
nations, particularly in the West, as an inevitable starting point for any
reform programme.
  The nation-state was therefore seen as the source of European prog-
ress and strength, while simultaneously, the source of ailment in the
Islamic world was identified as stemming from its own political system.
On the one hand, fragmented discussions focusing on ideas of inferior-
ity and superiority were seen as having a direct effect on the regulation
of political authority or statecraft. Muslim reformers, as we will see in
Chapter 8, internalized this debate, and, as a result, the impetus for
reform centred on political systems—which they believed was the
source of a declining Caliphate. On the other hand, Arab Muslims were
not blind to the increasing Turkish ‘nationalistic’ tendency to disassoci-
ate itself—politically, socially, and ideologically—from Islam.
However, the ideal of the umma forced them to show solidarity with the
Muslim Turks. Indeed, early ‘Arab nationalism’ too was a reaction
against religious identity—by Christians in the Levant, as has been
argued by George Antonius in his seminal book The Arab Awakening.19

Orientalism and the Nation-State

The arguments for the ‘failure’ of the European nation-state model in
the Islamic world were identified by Sami Zubaida as part of the
Orientalist discourse. The first is alluded to above—in other words,
historically. The political and religious community coincided with the

57
 THE HIJAZ
umma, whereas Western nation-states are predicated upon the separa-
tion of religion and state. He points out the flawed logic in assuming
that all previous history will necessarily dictate future trajectory, which
merely facilitates the fatuous idea that ‘the “failure” of the nation-state
in “Islamic” countries is due to the fact that the notion of a territorial
state with individualised citizenship, secular law and principles of sov-
ereignty, is alien to the Muslim mind’.20
  Through the work of Bertrand Badie, Zubaida provides a contrast
between the ‘Western’ and the ‘Islamic’ state by discussion of ideational
differences. He argues that the nation-state model is compatible with
the Islamic notion of governance through the example of modern
(1979) Iran. While far from perfect, Iran demonstrates that an Islamic
model can exist with all the trappings of the nation-state.21
  The ideational deals with the issue of legitimacy. In the West, a pano-
ply of philosophical options coexist, and the Western world has availed
itself of a combination of these governing philosophies and worldviews.
These combinations, according to Badie, exist in a public space, which
is removed from the religious sphere ‘governed by systemic consider-
ations of legitimacy and legality and by individualized political actors,
all in distinct contrast to Islamic political cultures’.22

The Nation-State in Islamic Reform Scholarship

Encounters with the concept of the nation-state via colonialism
resulted in the kindling of nationalist sentiment in the Muslim world.
The resulting incongruity can be attributed to the differing trajectories
experienced by European and Islamic civilizations. The nation-state
concept evolved in Europe as a result of the unique social, economic,
and political needs of European societies, whereas the nation-state in
the Islamic world was not the result of an inevitable, organic evolution.
It was, essentially, a colonial imposition, which did not address or con-
sider the social, political, or economic needs of Muslim societies.
  Unfortunately, some Sunni reformers (Revivalists) such as Jamal
al-Din al-Afghani (1838–97), Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905), and
Mohammad Iqbal (1877–1938) gave little attention to the essence of
the nation-state.23 Instead of focusing on the substance or content of
the nation-state (concepts of constitutionalism, law, liberty, and so

58
 INTERNATIONAL ORDER AND THE NATION-STATE
forth), they concentrated on the formalism of the nation-state. As a
result, this inhibited the political thought of Muslim reformers in
developing a modern theory of statehood and associated elements of
social development, political prosperity, military capacity, and social
integrity. The focus on formalism led to a narrow and dichotomous
categorization of political authority as being either tyrannical or just.
Alternatively, political authority was classified under maqasid, ‘the
objectives of the law’, as being based on either legitimate or non-
legitimate policy. While this had some passing resemblance to the tax-
onomy of Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), the founder of Arabo-Islamic
‘sociology’, who categorized governance as being one of three types
(tyranny, royal authority, or the Caliphate),24 classical Islamic scholar-
ship was seen as being a vestige of the Rashidun Caliphate, and therefore
inapplicable in the contemporary world.
  The development of political doctrine was different in the case of
Shi’ism, as we shall see. Suffice it to say that it was closely connected
with the Safavid period in Iran, which lasted from 1501 to 1722. The
cornerstone of the Safavid project entailed a state-sanctioned conver-
sion to Twelver Shi’ism to consolidate a Persian polity. Upon adopting
Shi’ism, Shah Isma‘il (1501–24) was the first to rely on the Shi’ite
doctrine of the messianic rulership of the Hidden Twelfth Imam, and
imported émigré ‘ulama’ from south Lebanon to establish his state
through Shi’ification.25

The State and the Mandate of the Jurist

Khomeini was acutely aware of the ideation of nation-states, its con-
fines within boundaries, and the complication of transcendence to a
wider, larger community. This is addressed in his book Mardom, Ummat,
Mellat. But Khomeini had indeed an unparalleled ability to form con-
ciliatory narratives. Ervand Abrahamian, for instance, offers a ‘popu-
larist’ narrative of Khomeinism. He suggests that Khomeini embraced
the nationalist narrative (of the Fatherland)26 in preference to the class
tension and antagonism that could alienate peasants, and Marxist
influences on young students. Abrahamian studied Khomeini’s
approach and compared it with the Third World–Latin American
experience. To him, the popular reaction was not just socio-economic;

59
 THE HIJAZ
it was also cultural, ideational, (theo-)political, and distinctly national.
Ultimately, it was a pragmatic middle-class movement seeking to
enter the modern age in its own terms, on its own platform, and with
a particular national vision.
  In essence, the effect of the institutionalization of Shi’ism in Iran
accelerated the ‘Iranization’ of Shi’ite doctrine—in fact, almost to an
irreversible extent, as traditional clerical structures have been almost
entirely erased.
  Despite succumbing to a fatal heart attack two years prior to the
Iranian Revolution, Ali Shariati was perhaps the most prominent critic
of the ‘statization’ of Shi’ism, arguing that it had isolated Iranian
Muslims from the wider global Islamic community, which is over-
whelmingly Sunni. In addition, the nationalization of Shi’ite clergy
subordinates it to Iranian geopolitical interests, which are independent
of religious motives. According to Zubaida, ‘the contradictory duality
of sovereignties’ is written into the constitution of the Islamic Republic
of Iran: in other words, the sovereignty of the popular will, in line with
democratic nation-state constitutions; and, a novel principle in politics
and government (velayat-e faqih) that places the judiciary under the
exclusive control of the clergy with the provision of extensive revision
of codes to render them Islamic.27
  Revolutionary Shi’ite political Islam, as expressed in the Revolution,
has now evolved paradoxically into a type of nationalism that was origi-
nally given religious legitimacy ‘at the expense of transnational soli-
darities’.28 Incidences, however, where local Shi’a communities had
been used by Tehran to achieve political goals are not uncommon—
such as the Shi’a of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.29
  On a different point, interestingly, Iran and the Arabs, as well as
other non-Iranian Shi’a, seem to be aware that they might need to
cooperate to achieve short-term political goals. It appears that Iranian
nationalism and national interest continue to be the driving forces
behind the country’s foreign policy. This nationalism would not be
‘racialized’, as it would include the ethnic non-Persian Shi’a of Iran,
such as the Ahwazi Arabs and Azeris, who make up a significant propor-
tion of the population in their respective provinces. This orientation of
Iranian foreign policy is possibly easier to address than a ‘religiously
inspired’ ‘messianic’ one, as it allows for pragmatic diplomatic solu-

60
 INTERNATIONAL ORDER AND THE NATION-STATE
tions to current issues—as exemplified by the recent unsettled US–
Iranian rapprochement. Paradoxically, the Islamic Republic would
hence be rooted in traditional Iranian foreign policy.

Grotian Moment?
The concept of a ‘rational international society’ stems from the work
of Hugo Grotius. According to the Grotian tradition, international
relations take place within an international society in which a state is
bound not only by rules of ‘prudence and expediency’, but also by
moral and legal rules.30 Grotius’s unique contribution lies in his asser-
tion that a singular society of states ought not to be governed by force
or warfare, but by tangible laws, and a mutual framework to enforce
such laws.31 Indeed, Grotius’s conception of international society was
not one limited to the Christian or European world. Instead, it was
envisaged to be a global enterprise in the truest sense of the word, with
natural law as the basis for international relations, as the necessary
implication of natural law was that it applied to all men equally (at least
from his perspective).32
  The Islamic state has enjoyed many manifestations, including a global
presence as a major power, as a collective of the Muslim world, and as
an entity relating to other powers, nations, and populations. Well before
the establishment of an international order, international law, an inter-
national justice system, and an undisputed need for an international rule
of law, Islamic societies had basic legal principles that guided their activi-
ties towards others, beyond their umma and their territory.
  The ‘unregulated world’ was dominated by actors and polities, each
with its own needs and goals, that necessitated war, peace, and trade
with others. In this challenging context, it was essential for the collec-
tive to accomplish international cooperation in order to fulfil universal
prosperity, attain its needs, and improve relations with others.
Similarly, it was essential for Islamic countries, in their relations with
other countries, to adopt international treaties for specific purposes as
well as to better regulate certain relations among Islamic countries.
  While international law has been well established over the last cen-
tury, and while we examine extensively its application on legal persons,
the modern state, and its understanding of the Islamic rules that regu-

61
 THE HIJAZ
late relations in accordance with the objectives and governance of
Shari’a, has not advanced equally. These rules were frequently used
internally, throughout the modern history of the Middle East and the
Islamic world, to justify controversial international relations of Islamic
governments, including modern-day oil concessions, peace with Israel,
or military basing agreements with the United States.

International Treaties in Islam

A feature of a state is its capacity to conduct treaties with others. A
treaty is generally defined as ‘an agreement between countries to orga-
nize a certain legal relation, and determining the rules of this rela-
tion’.33 Consequently, an international treaty is, in this regard, a formal
written agreement between two or more countries or groups that have
the stature of states.
  Jurists such as al-Tabari34 and al-Bayhaqi35 have agreed on the lawful-
ness of the conclusion of treaties in Islam. For instance, they high-
lighted the permissibility of truce agreements and other kinds of trea-
ties between Muslims and non-Muslims that are fixed for a certain
period—the assumption being that Muslims are all subjects of one
greater community. They based such contractual legality on Qur’anic
verses and the Sunna. For example, the Qur’an says: ‘But if they incline
to peace, incline thou to it as well …’,36 which is explained by al-Tabari
as follows: ‘If they—non-Muslims—incline to peace through avoiding
waging wars, or whether through entering into Islam or paying jizya or
concluding a treaty or any other ways of peace building, then the
Prophet should incline to it as well.’37 Interestingly, in another verse,
the duty of fulfilling treaty obligations is treated as a religious obliga-
tion.38 Jurists rely on exploring the context of the Prophet
Mohammad’s history of truce agreements or treaties with non-Mus-
lims, for instance with the Jews through the contractual instrument
known as the Constitution of Medina,39 but also others such as al-
Hudaybiyya,40 Sahib Eilah,41 and Bani Damrh.42 Consequently, treaties
are generally permissible unless they stipulate violations of Islamic law
or permit what is known in Islam to be forbidden. In such a case, the
treaty would be null and void. Therefore, Islam encourages concluding
treaties for the public benefit, as well as fulfilling the conditions of such

62
 INTERNATIONAL ORDER AND THE NATION-STATE
treaties. That was the basis used by the Egyptians to justify their peace
treaty with Israel in 1973.
  There are two aspects that distinguish and give value to the conclu-
sion of treaties: the first is the designation of authority to conclude it;
the second is the legal process that should be followed to reach a con-
clusion. Muslim scholars have emphasized the responsibility of con-
cluding international treaties or agreements with other states, which
has mainly rested with the caliph/imam, in the sense that he is the one
who has the authority of enforcing and implementing state policy in
both its internal and international relations. They highlighted that the
Prophet Mohammad held this responsibility in his person, which
necessities granting a mandate only to the caliph/ruler or whoever is
chosen and delegated to do so on his behalf.
  There are procedural steps to be followed towards the conclusion of
the treaty, and in order to give it effect. These include negotiations,
agreements, signing, and enforcement. Thus, any diplomatic negotia-
tions between legates, ambassadors, or state representatives are con-
sidered preliminary agreements until they have been approved, signed,
and sealed by the head of state. Only then do they become binding.
Indeed, the signature of the caliph establishes a legitimate agreement
and an executed treaty commitment, and it also implies compliance
with the treaty articles and the enforcement of these articles as stipu-
lated in the agreement. Treaty duration and validity are somewhat
particular. A treaty is by default temporary, not permanent—the legal
precedent being that the Prophet Mohammad restricted the validity of
al-Hudaybiyya43 to ten years. This might be, in fact, the major differ-
ence between the Islamic law conception of treaties and that of general
international law. It is worth noting that there are some treaties that
would be considered valid in general international law but invalid in
Islamic law.
  Like most matters relating to the affairs of Muslims in siyasa shar‘iyya
(‘legitimate policy’), international treaties, in the context of the objec-
tives of Shari’a, are intended to facilitate public benefit and prevent any
harm, with prevention taking priority over achieving benefit. In that
vein, the conclusion of peace and truce treaties, among others, are
aimed at preventing potential and existential threats (harm) to
Muslims. The preservation of the Faith and the umma are a legal prior-

63
 THE HIJAZ
ity, derived from jurisprudential sources—in particular, sadd al-tharay’
(‘blocking the means’ (to evil)), which involves taking measures to
prevent developments or actions which may lead to calamities, includ-
ing fighting and aggression against Muslims.44 Similarly, the conclusion
of trade, economic, and cultural treaties are aimed at bringing benefits
to Muslims, thus falling under the category of al-maslaha al-mursala, or
public benefit (in other words, both a legitimate policy and an objec-
tive of Shari’a). To conclude, international treaties should be based on
sound foundations that comply with Shari’a law and fulfil the condi-
tions required in legal contracts, as well as being for the benefit of
Muslims.
  In the current global context, the emergence of international orga-
nization among different states rests primarily on realist, functional,
and constructivist international relations considerations, calculations,
and principles. In Islam there are no prescribed laws or prohibitions on
establishing blocs among Muslim countries. In fact, the Shari’a encour-
ages establishing such arrangements as long as they fall within Shari’a
objectives. International organizations such as the United Nations, the
African Union, and the European Union play an important role in
combating terrorism and its causes.45
  Scholars and jurists46 have reasoned that, due to the eroding role of
the umma, the state of conflict in Islamic countries, and economic
stagnation, the Muslim world is in need of innovative international
legal norms and jurisprudential opinions (ijtihad),47 derived from the
Qur’an, Sunna, and competent jurists or ‘legitimate policy’, in order
to establish a transnational Muslim solidarity, grounded on peaceful
coexistence and tolerance. Such solidarity would avoid, prevent, and
resolve conflicts, and produce harmony and coordination conducive
to equality, justice, economic prosperity, cooperation, and, most
importantly, happiness for its population in this life without prejudice
to the hereafter.
  Furthermore, these scholars and jurists have stated that the respon-
sibility for regulating international Islamic organizations should be
confined to the most competent jurists, those who possess the ability
to explore the future prospects of Muslims’ interests, and to handle the
intellectual and jurisprudential ijtihad regarding the regulation of
Islamic organizations. To their credit, those jurists elevate peace as the

64
 INTERNATIONAL ORDER AND THE NATION-STATE
essence of international relations in Islam—where Muslims enhance
and contribute to international peace and security. Fearful of imperial
history, they refute any foreign colonial claims while highlighting
Islamic values that are rooted in humanitarian grounds to promote
justice, love, brotherhood, and peace in society. Muslim scholars48
affirm such peace-building values via recourse to religious texts,49
wherein Muslims are commanded to treat and call people in the kind-
est manner, with wisdom and goodly exhortation. By extension, the
regulation of multinational organizations that achieve benefit to man-
kind, and serve in building better international relations, should be
carried out on the basis of Islamic values.
  However, in a time when Islam is confronted by Islamophobia and is
actively and centrally engaged in the global war on terror, there is a
need for a more substantive call on the operation of Islamic law within
the international rule of law. Application of the objectives of Shari’a in
legitimate policy in international relations provides for positive contri-
butions to international and national rule of law contexts alike.

The Caliphate as International Cooperation

The Caliphate enjoyed far-reaching influence in the past; and at the
heart of its worldwide success was, and still is, the notion of ‘solidar-
ity’. Arguably, the Caliphate, with its comprehensive governance struc-
ture and access to justice, offers a much more developed system of
institutions than many Muslims have experienced or witnessed over the
last century.
  Even after the Caliphate, many polities gave primacy to Islamic law,
directly or indirectly, in regulating temporal aspects of life. Adherence
to Shari’a took on different forms in these countries: in some dynami-
cally, as positive law; in others, more figuratively—for example, by
way of a reference in a national constitution. This expression is allied
with many shapes of governance structures and political affiliations,
but, nonetheless, Islam remains the primary legal identity and societal
voice. These societies—Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and
certain central Asian countries, among others—are organized around
practices and customs evolving from a 1400-year-old tradition. Social
and religious norms are deeply embedded in the way Muslim polities

65
 THE HIJAZ
function today, and even though many have changed as a result of colo-
nialism and the fall of the Caliphate, they remain an Islamic expression
at their core.
  The question is whether there is an Islamic alternative to the cen-
trality of the community. Is there a place in the international system for
a legitimate Caliphate? Is there a ‘worldview’ of a Caliphate that can be
stripped away from an international Islamophobic or (fear of) ‘terror-
ism’ discourse? Can this be consistent with international law?
  It is undoubtedly important that the Caliphate is understood in its
historical context. It has a long, well-known history, that began in
Medina and witnessed much turbulence in an effort to bring about
social change, or the ‘Islamic state’, as Abdulrahman Kurdi dubbed it.50
Wedad al-Qadi attempted to philologically dissect the term khalifa,51
relying on the Qur’an and the prophetic Hadiths.52 The basic and, in
essence, the truest meaning of ‘caliph’ is a guardianship over earth in a
metaphysical sense, which is found in Islamic theology in the exchange
between God and the Angels on the creation of man.53
  While some may interpret khalifa or istikhlaf as ‘successive author-
ity’ as it pertains to time and generations, there is a related meaning,
which is the more direct source of the meaning today: the successor to
the Prophet Mohammad. The concept assumes a complex construction
of political norms that evolved over centuries relating to nomination
and succession and the contestation of power and resistance, which led
to the more established Islamic doctrinal system of hukm (rulership or
governance).
  Even within Islamic circles there is a common misperception that
the only political form of government or state system in Islam is the
Caliphate.54 We must not fail to remember that the Caliphate is a con-
stitutional regulatory framework for appointing the leader of the
Islamic polity. But could a modern Caliphate, complying with interna-
tional norms, be a unifying factor?
  This depends on three elements: (1) the nature of the political sys-
tem (remembering that a Caliphate is a simple constitutional norm);
(2) the relational scope of the sovereign (caliph and the state); and (3)
Islamic perpetuity in time and space, beyond the political system,
whether it is the legal personality of the ‘state’.
  What most55 Islamic political thinkers and scholars fundamentally
agree on is the maintenance of Muslim solidarity; and, as we shall see

66
 INTERNATIONAL ORDER AND THE NATION-STATE
in Chapter 5, many understand this as the transcendent meaning of the
Caliphate.
  Perhaps the following powerful observation on the hope of solidarity
best encapsulates the sentiment, significance, and deep promise of the
concept: ‘For … Muslim subject minorities the spread of nationalism
throughout the world means submergence if not extinction, while the
Caliphate carries a message of salvation through an international Muslim
solidarity.’56

67
 PART II

SELF-DETERMINATION: MODERN
 3

ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION AND THE RISE

OF THE MODERN STATE

The first three decades of the twentieth century represented an era of

revolutionary change in the world order, with the rise and fall of
empires, the inception of new political ideologies, and the re-imagining
of identities—especially national identity. All these dynamics had a
profound impact in the re-fashioning of the international system. With
the end of the First World War, the necessities of peace, and the strug-
gle for self-determination, alongside the national interests of the
world’s Great Powers, were the most prominent factors in the shaping
of the new world order.
  As in any period of transformation, newly minted concepts and doc-
trines (like any unprecedented idea) were subject to differences of inter-
pretation and imagination. While legal notions of statehood and self-
determination developed much traction in the period following the First
World War, these concepts were, firstly, plagued by the fact that they
were considered differently, depending on the national context, and sec-
ondly, they were subjected to the sub-texts of the Great Powers, depend-
ing on whom they were dealing with at any given moment.
  The aim of this section is to discuss the emergence of self-determina-
tion and the re-characterization of the state in the aftermath of the First
World War. In particular, it sets out to address how these concepts were
applied (or not) with respect to the Arabs in general, The Hijaz in par-

71
 THE HIJAZ
ticular, and the Islamic world community by extension. A comprehensive
discussion of the legal concepts themselves takes place in Chapter 6.
  Whatever the formal political status of The Hijaz, it has always been
designated as the Holy Territory, the Home of God, and as such, it has
been the single most important centre of Islamic civilization. This was
manifestly true during the lifetime of the Prophet and the period in
which it was the administrative capital of the Arab tribes, in the forty-
year caliphates of the Rashidun era in Medina. Then, when the seat of
government moved from Damascus to Baghdad, Cairo, and Istanbul, it
continued to function as the centre of Islam. Indeed, a primary purpose
of the secular power of the sultan was to ensure that all believers were
able to complete the Hajj in safety. Accordingly, the Umayyad, Abbasid,
Fatimid, Mamluk, Hashemite, and Ottoman rulers all styled them-
selves Custodians of the Two Holy Mosques.
  Only the dynasty governing The Hijaz could claim the title of caliph.
Consequently, dominion over the Holy Cities gave the rulers religious
legitimacy among the Muslim population. The dynasties and their lead-
ers thus competed to offer patronage to The Hijaz’s inhabitants and
supply the Ka’ba with its annual cloth.
  The Hijaz was, therefore, uniquely significant for the religious and
secular legitimacy of the Ottoman sultans, who assumed sovereignty
over the area in 1517 and adopted the title Servants of the Two Holy
Places. Their control over The Hijaz, as caliphs, secured the loyalty of
their Muslim subjects, raised their prestige among Muslims living out-
side the empire, and expanded their influence abroad under the banner
of Muslim solidarity.1 As late as the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II
(1842–1918), The Hijaz was regarded as ‘the jewel in the crown of the
exalted Caliphate’.2
  Even when The Hijaz was firmly in the possession of a single author-
ity, it belonged to the whole of the Islamic world in a wider sense.
Every Muslim had a duty to travel there, if they could. Many countries
donated money to the province, and it was subjected to only nominal
taxation by the central government, which was offset with large subsi-
dies to support local administration and the maintenance of the Holy
Sites, and to pay off Bedouin raiders.3 Additional money flowed in from
Egypt, the Indian Muslim states, and also from private citizens.4 In his
examination of these subsidies paid by the central Ottoman govern-

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 ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION
ment, William Ochsenwald noted that since The Hijaz was located on
the remote southern frontier of the empire, the primary concern of the
central government was to ensure its security.5 But it was the religious
importance of The Hijaz to the empire that gave it its virtual immunity
from external religious and political influence.
  In other words, as an Ottoman special-status vilayet, The Hijaz
enjoyed a sui generis status. Remote from the capital and not densely
populated, it had not been fully integrated into the centralized admin-
istrative and military system of the empire.6 The Emirate of Makkah
had a special autonomous status. Crucially, its citizens were exempted
from military conscription. The nineteenth-century Ottoman Law of
the Vilayets came to regulate this constitutional arrangement.
  The governance of The Hijaz had a structure that was not present in
any other Ottoman vilayet. Makkah was a kind of state within a state.7
Although the sultan’s representative, known as the vali, governed it
institutionally, in reality he shared his authority with the Sharif of
Makkah,8 who was also appointed by the sultan.9 Because of the pres-
tige and respect that the sharifs enjoyed, and the fact that their tradi-
tional role in The Hijaz dated back to the time before Ottoman control,
the imperial influence in The Hijaz depended on the loyalty of the
indigenous power brokers. The Ottomans were officially guardians of
the Holy Places, but they were not able to exercise that privilege with-
out the co-operation of the Qurayshi Emir of Makkah.10
  The Grand Mosque of Makkah was itself an institution that exerted
great influence within The Hijaz and in the wider Islamic world. It was
a hub for religious scholars and jurists, and a touchstone for luminar-
ies, legal traditions, and professional disciplines. The Imam of the Two
Holy Mosques usually had a connection with the sultan and was cus-
tomarily a sayyid, a descendant of the Prophet Mohammad.
  From 1880 onwards, the idea of an ‘Arab Caliphate’ gathered pace.
So, the Ottoman sultans, and their Egyptian agent, Mohammad ‘Ali,
began to fear that the loss of The Hijaz might be a blow to imperial
unity and a threat to their legitimacy as caliphs.11 Moreover, British
attention was becoming more focused on the region, and, especially,
the Sudan and the Horn of Africa—a fixation that would reach its cli-
max in the Fashoda incident in 1898.12 In turn, the fear of British
intrigue pushed the Ottoman government into propaganda campaigns

73
 THE HIJAZ
that emphasized the sultan’s status as the ‘Caliph of Islam’; 1908 ush-
ered in an important period for the Ottomans and The Hijaz.

Roots of Arab Nationalism:The Arab Revolt

The Arab Revolt was launched in The Hijaz by al-Hussein bin ‘Ali, Sharif
of Makkah, just before dawn on 2 June 1916.13 For the Arabs, as a newly
 

imagined nation, it signalled a desire for independent statehood.

  The roots of the Revolt stretched back to a similar upheaval in the
Ottoman Empire, caused by the rise of the Committee of Union and
Progress (the CUP, or Young Turks), who seized power in 1908 and
demanded that a reformist policy agenda be implemented and the
1876 constitution be enforced.14 In the summer of 1908 the rulership
of the Emirate of Makkah became vacant, and rivalry for the office
between two of the leading Hashemite clans, the Dhawi-‘Awn and the
Dhawi-Zayd, became closely entangled with the rivalry between the
Ottoman ancien régime and the victorious CUP.15 Although the Grand
Mosque established the Dhawi-‘Awn as rulers, Sharif ‘Ali Haydar of
the rival Dhawi-Zayd attempted to contest the decision through his
contacts in the CUP. The sultan, however, favoured Sharif Hussein ibn
 

‘Ali of the Dhawi-‘Awn for the appointment, and began to campaign

for his candidacy.
  At that point, Sharif Hussein pledged his loyalty to the sultan and
resisted the CUP’s attempts to encroach upon the special position of
the Emir of Makkah and The Hijaz.16 Nevertheless, these continued,
and in 1911 a telegraph was sent from the Makkan notables to the
Ministry of Interior of the Ottoman Empire requesting a cessation in
the implementation of new procedures in The Hijaz, and for the pro-
tection of the remaining privileges that the Hijazis had enjoyed ever
since The Hijaz became a part of the Ottoman Empire. They professed
concern that this was necessary for the ‘Great Ottoman Caliphate’s era
[to] be preserved’.17 This correspondence indicates that the Hijazis had
no desire to secede from the Ottoman state if the privileged status of
The Hijaz remained untouched.
  The Arab Revolt was the founding act of modern Arab self-determi-
nation,18 and it was a direct reaction to the rising tide of Turkish nation-
alism. At first glance, The Hijaz seems miscast as the locus of nationalist

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 ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION
sentiment. This loyal and well-rewarded ‘special province’ of the
Ottoman Empire did not seem like fertile ground for the rise of a secu-
lar nationalist ideology. Religion dominated the political and intellec-
tual life of western Arabia, and a commitment to Islamic solidarity was
largely unquestioned. The economic, political, and military prerequi-
sites for the emergence of nationalism among the Hijazi elites were
also undeveloped in the period before the First World War.19 Ernest
Dawn20 and Joshua Teitelbaum21 refer to reports of Arab nationalists
approaching Sharif Hussein as early as 1911 to ask him to assume lead-
ership of the Arab movement. Until early 1914, however, he remained
supportive of the Ottoman Caliphate while gradually strengthening the
institutional powers of the Emirate of Makkah, similar to Sharif ‘Awn
al-Rafiq before him, and using Islamic legitimacy rather than national-
ism as a political driver.
  The policies of centralization implemented by the CUP government
in the aftermath of the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913, which included
efforts to strengthen Istanbul’s control over The Hijaz, were reflected
in the appointment of Wahib Bey as vali in 1914, at the head of seven
battalions of soldiers.22 He was instructed to tighten control over the
province, and duly began to extend The Hijaz Railway from Medina to
Makkah. The Hijazi people opposed this, as it would prejudice the
interests of the Bedouin. In March 1913 the new Law of the Vilayets
was passed, which aimed to preserve the national authority of the cen-
tral Turkish government through the vali and the Ministry of Interior.23
Because of Sharif Hussein’s opposition, as well as the appointment of a
new vizir in Istanbul, the law was never enforced. However, the CUP
government was reported to have plotted to remove Sharif Hussein
due to the uncompromising positions he had taken on these issues. This
reaction, in turn, frustrated the Hashemites and made them seriously
consider the possibility of revolt for the first time.24
  Sharif Hussein used religious, rather than nationalist, justifications
to explain his revolt against the Ottomans. Dawn notes, perhaps with
some exaggeration, that it was Sharif Hussein’s consuming ambition to
gain the universal Caliphate that drove him into alliance with the
British into revolt against the Ottomans.25 Teitelbaum also argues that
the Sharif was in revolt not to establish a kingdom or a larger Arab
state, but an Islamic polity that would replace Ottoman control over

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 THE HIJAZ
the Arab territories, and in which the Hashemite-led Arabs would take
their rightful place.26 He did not subscribe to the idea of the caliph as
a pope-like figure. The Sharif was interested in the traditional Sunni
Caliphate, incorporating temporal as well as spiritual and religious
authority, and the right to lead the Islamic umma as a member of the
Quraysh and a descendant of the Prophet.27
  As discussed earlier, pan-Islamic thinkers of the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries had already advocated the idea of a Qurayshi
caliph. Kawakibi28 supported the notion of an Arab caliph of Qurayshi
origin, who would establish his seat in Makkah, but whose political
power would be limited to The Hijaz, and who would not interfere in
the politics of other Islamic countries.29 Rashid Rida30 backed the Arab
Revolt and Sharif Hussein in the beginning, but he saw it as a pre-
emptive move to protect The Hijaz from European rule in the event of
a collapse of Ottoman power rather than as a military or political effort
to emancipate the Arabs from Turkish rule.31 Although Rida stressed his
Ottoman loyalty before the war, he attempted to construct an Arab
Caliphate in the place of the Turkish one after 1914, when faced with
the prospect of Ottoman defeat. His efforts culminated in ‘The General
Organic Law of the Arab Empire’, in which he suggested a division
between the religious and temporal spheres to the point of establishing
two capitals: Makkah, which would remain the religious centre and
would become the seat of the Caliphate; and Damascus, which would
house the secular government. Administrative policies would be left to
a president, who would manage them with the help of an elected coun-
cil of deputies and a council of ministers, who would be drawn from
among the deputies. It was proposed that the caliph should be from the
house of the Sharifs of Makkah and should manage all religious affairs,
but at the same time abide by the General Organic Law.32 Eventually,
Rida would discredit Sharif Hussein in his later work, al-Hijaz wa al-
Wahabiyyun,33 and would ultimately argue for the protection of The
Hijaz by the Wahhabi–Saudi forces. Among the reasons Rida put for-
ward to justify Saudi intervention in The Hijaz was the fact that the
people of Najd were being prevented from performing the Haj; he also
accused Sharif Hussein of facilitating the foreign intervention and influ-
ence in the Holy Lands.34

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 ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION
The British Alliance with the Arab Nationalist Movement
During this period, immediately before and after the Revolt, it is strik-
ing how the question of the Caliphate was tied to the nationalist revolt.
This also explains how Sharif Hussein, who had little connection with
the Arab nationalists before the war, became their leader. In October
1914 Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War, established contact
with one of Sharif Hussein’s sons, Emir Abdullah, and expressed the
thought that the Arabs should assume the Caliphate in Makkah or
Medina.35 In his message of 31 October 2014 to Abdullah he stated:
 

If the Arab nation assists England in this war that has been forced upon
us by Turkey, England will guarantee that no internal intervention takes
place in Arabia and will give the Arabs every assistance against external
foreign aggression. It may be that an Arab of the true race will assume
the Caliphate at Mecca or Medina and so good may come by the help
of God out of all evil which is now occurring.36
  Shortly thereafter, the infamous McMahon–Hussein correspondence
would further discuss the idea of single, unitary Arab state.37 In his
letter of 30 August 1915 Henry McMahon, the British High Commiss­
 

ioner in Cairo, wrote: ‘His Majesty’s Government would welcome the

re-establishment of the Caliphate by “an Arab of true race”’.38 Apart
from recognizing the Caliphate, McMahon also promised the establish-
ment of an independent Arab kingdom, whose borders would reach
beyond The Hijaz into the Arabic-speaking lands of Mesopotamia,
Palestine, and Greater Syria, with minor exclusions to the west of
Damascus, which was desired by the French.39
  As the war went on, the Ottomans declared jihad against the Entente.
The British felt it necessary to withdraw their support for the ‘Arab
Caliphate’, and instead supported nationalist rather than Islamic efforts,
largely because the Ottomans had played the ‘pan-Islamic’ card against
them.40 Also, the British ruled a large Muslim population in India, which
meant that they had to be careful when stirring up Islamic passions. In
other words, they recognized the danger inherent in promoting an Arab
Islamic authority in Makkah to rival the sultan, as it would divide the
Muslims and could threaten future peace negotiations, as well as weak-
ening their position in India. Backing Arab nationalism as a counter-
weight to the Islamic rhetoric of the Ottomans therefore seemed the

77
 THE HIJAZ
safer option. As a result of the success of the Allies in Mesopotamia and
Syria, as well as the Arab Revolt, the Ottoman pan-Islamic state was
shattered. This paved the way for a re-imagining and re-mapping of the
Arab territories as envisaged by the Western powers.
  As far as the Hashemites were concerned, their support for Arab
nationalism was due, in part, to pragmatism; this became valuable
when political action was needed in the areas of the Arab world beyond
their traditional sphere of influence in The Hijaz and the rest of the
contested and lawless parts of the Arabian Peninsula to the east. Emir
Faisal, the third son of Sharif Hussein, used nationalism as an ideologi-
cal justification for his leadership and actions against the Ottomans
when he began military activities in Syria.41 Arab nationalist rhetoric
also proved useful in the negotiations with foreign powers whose
political frame of reference was ethnic nationalism. With the emer-
gence of Britain as a potential patron, the Hashemites welcomed the
idea of independence and rule over a large area of Arab lands, as
opposed to limited control over Makkah or The Hijaz alone, as offered
by the Ottomans. The Hashemites moved forward with their nationalist
aspirations, as they believed that they would be more likely to obtain
British support.42
  The tripartite alliance between the British, the Hashemites, and the
Arab nationalists was established when Mohammad Sharif al-Farouqi,
a staff officer in the Turkish army, deserted from Gallipoli in October
1915 and travelled to Egypt to try to interest the British in Arab
nationalist movements.43 Al-Farouqi assured British officials that the
Arab movements were united, and willing to recognize Sharif Hussein
as their leader. He also gave information about the Young Arab Party
(al-Fatat) in Damascus, which ‘offers active co-operation in return for
[a] guarantee that England will support them in their attempt of Arab
independence. … Unless they receive a favourable reply from England
within a few weeks, they have decided to throw in their lot with Turkey
and Germany and to secure best deal they can.’44
  The 1915 Damascus Protocol of the Arab nationalists provided the
first seeds of the idea of the ethnocentric self-determination of the
Arabs. It married an Arab centre and a centre of Islam. The Hijaz was
chosen as the driving force for Arab self-determination. The mandate
for the new single ‘Arab state’ was formulated and agreed in

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 ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION
Damascus. More crucially, the nationalists put forth a programme for
an ‘Arab renaissance’ (nahda), a broad vision for a system of gover-
nance and progress.
  British officials were pushing for an official alliance, faced with the
imminent threat that the Arabs might join the enemy.45 Moreover, the
British decided to back Hussein for a number of reasons relating both
to matters of military strategy and geopolitics and to political and
religious considerations.46 They were particularly enthusiastic about
the prestige of the ‘Sharif of Mecca’ and the perception that he pos-
sessed the ability to claim the loyalty of the Islamic umma.47 Moreover,
Sharif Hussein was in a position of temporal power: he possessed a
force of armed tribesmen and was able legitimately to call for jihad;
the intellectuals in Damascus had a valuable ideology in Arab national-
ism to sell to the British, but it was not enough on its own. Only
Sharif Hussein was seen as capable of coordinating the Islamic and
nationalist forces.48 These unique political, religious, ideological, geo-
political, and geostrategic privileges that Sharif Hussein enjoyed at the
time best explain why he was chosen over Ibn Saud. Arab Bureau
Commander D. G. Hogarth retrospectively highlighted the underlying
   

rationale behind Britain’s choice to back Hussein as follows: ‘In addi-

tion to being the “only possible spokesman for the Arabs from the
British point of view”, “Husain could exert throughout the Moslem
world a moral influence which would, and did, make a very great dif-
ference indeed”’.49

The King of The Hijaz Declares Independence

In May 1915 the Arab nationalists al-Arabiyya al-Fatat and al-‘Ahd pro-
vided Emir Faisal with a mandate, the Damascus Protocol. This was the
basis of the Revolt against the Ottomans, and its demands were the
basis of the Hussein–McMahon correspondence. The Protocol defined
the territory for a single ‘Arab state’, from Aleppo in Syria to Aden in
Yemen, providing that the demands of the British were met. The man-
date provided that Sharif Hussein ibn ‘Ali, Emir of Makkah, was to
‘lead’ the Arabs to their independence and put forward a nahda pro-
gramme to fight against disease, poverty, and ignorance. It was the
foundational legal act of modern Arab self-determination.

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 THE HIJAZ
  Contemporary sources indicate that Sharif Hussein himself aspired
to re-establish the Caliphate as both a temporal and spiritual Islamic
institution.50 However, as the office of the Caliphate still belonged to
the Ottomans at the time of the Revolt, Sharif Hussein believed that his
programme was that of an ‘Arab renaissance’. In fact, he proclaimed
himself al-nahidh bi al-bilad al-‘arabiyya, ‘the raiser of the Arab coun-
tries’, but was later named malik al-bilad al-‘arabiyya, ‘the king of the
Arab territories’ or ‘the king of the Arabs’. He started using this title
on his official correspondence on 3 December 1916.51 At that time he
 

was relying on McMahon’s promises of an ‘independent Arab state’.

The Colonial Office issued a document on 27 June 1916 entitled ‘The
 

Grand Sherif of Mecca and the Independence of Hedjaz’, and attached

a copy of the Proclamation of Independence, in which Sharif Hussein
‘reasserts the independence of the Arabs of The Hijaz … their freedom
from Turkish invasion and foreign control of any kind and announcing
that the assembled notables, princes, and representatives of the people
had unanimously acclaimed him King of Hijaz’. The pamphlet was
translated into various languages and sent to colonial offices in Africa
and Asia.52
  A British telegram issued three months later, however, expressed
concern about Sharif Hussein’s adoption of the title King of the Arab
Nation. It called the proclamation ‘a sudden, premature and ill-consid-
ered action’, and articulated concerns that Imam Ibn Saud, Idrisi, and
the tribesmen of Jeddah might oppose this action.53 The British did not
want to be seen as supportive of Sharif Hussein’s appointment of him-
self as King of the Arabs, as it would threaten their relations with other
Arab chiefs in the Peninsula, especially with Imam Ibn Saud, with
whom they had established an alliance through the Darin Pact during
the Arab Revolt.
  There was yet another concern for the British: the secret Sykes–
Picot Agreement, signed in May 1916 and revealed by the Bolsheviks
the next year. It paid ‘lip service’ to the promise of independence
made by MacMahon to Hussein, but then used Sykes’s line in the sand
to apportion Palestine, Iraq, and Syria between British and French
spheres of influence.54 Additionally, the Balfour Declaration, which
was issued only a few months later, and was published by the War
Cabinet on 9 November, stated that ‘His Majesty’s government views
 

80
 ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION
with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national homeland for
the Jewish People, and will use its best endeavours to facilitate the
achievement of this object’. Interestingly, Sharif Hussein did not react
forcefully or publicly to the Declaration, reportedly ordering his sons
‘to calm the apprehensions of their followers about British inten-
tions’.55 Perhaps the back-channel diplomacy of the British and reas-
surances relayed to Sharif Hussein from Arab Bureau chief
D. G. Hogarth played their part in this. Others were sceptical of the
   

Declaration—notably a young Winston Churchill, perhaps due to his

belief that Jews displayed a penchant for revolutionary politics, and
the threat that it would pose to the British Empire, large parts of
which had Muslim populations. As a last resort, he stated that he stood
‘prepared to continue on this course, if it is the settled will of the
Cabinet’, a rather less than explicit endorsement.56
  The Declaration was aimed at Jews in the United States and Russia.
The British believed that American Jews possessed a disproportionate
amount of influence over their government, and, if satisfied with the
British overture, they would persuade President Wilson to enter the
war against the Central Powers. They also believed that the Russian
Revolution was directed primarily by Russian Jews, and that the
Declaration could be the spark that might re-ignite Russia’s war effort.
The British miscalculated, particularly in the case of the Soviets: the
Sykes–Picot Agreement was leaked by Leon Trotsky in 1917 and pub-
lished in the Manchester Herald. The British then entered damage-limi-
tation mode, and the Declaration to the Seven was issued as an affirma-
tion that Arab territories would be administered in accordance with
the ‘consent of the governed’.57
  By 1918 signs had begun to emerge that the British were not intent
on keeping their promises to the Arabs. General Allenby, British
Commander in the Levant and Palestine, informed his government that
he had offered Emir Faisal ‘… Official assurance that whatever mea-
sures might be taken during the period of military administration, they
were purely provisional and could not be allowed to prejudice the final
settlement by the Peace Conference, at which no doubt the Arabs
would have a representative’.58
  It is claimed that Allenby informed Emir Faisal that France was to be
the ‘Mandatory power’ in Syria, but Faisal went ahead and assumed the

81
 THE HIJAZ
position of governor of Damascus, with the support of his father. Faisal
hoped thereby to create a power base for a future Arab state.
McMahon’s promise was to be broken,59 the independent Arab king-
dom was to be limited to The Hijaz, and Sharif Hussein was to be rec-
ognized only as ‘King of Hijaz’—not the Islamic ruler of an Arab state.
  In August 1917 a document was issued by some ‘ulama’ in Makkah,
titled ‘Proclamation of the Ulema of Mecca’, to explain the revolt
against the Ottoman Empire to the Islamic nations. In it, Islamic refer-
ences are used to explain and legitimize the secession. The proclama-
tion describes the CUP’s policies as ‘impious aggression’, and Sharif
Hussein’s policy of reasserting the independence and freedom of the
Holy Cities of Makkah and Medina as being ‘in accordance with the
divine ordinances set down in the Holy Qur’an, the Sunna of the
Prophet and the honourable law of Islam, and follow[ing] the edicts of
justice, civilization and humanity’. The ‘ulama’ thus ‘solemnly declares
that today they know no king among the Muslims more devout, more
steadfast in the fear of God, more observant of his commands, more
zealous to perform his ordinances in word or deed, more competent
to guide our affairs in accordance with His commands than this descen-
dant of His Prophet who has now assumed the throne of the Arabian
lands’.60 It is not clear if the document represented the ‘ulama’ and
institution of the Two Holy Mosques or the ‘ulama’ who were in exile.
What is clear is that Sharif Hussein’s constitutional legitimacy as well
as the independence of the Holy Lands of Hijaz from non-Arab inter-
ference was being asserted. However, the issue of the Caliphate was
‘pending a unanimous declaration of policy by the Muslim world’.61

French and German Outlook on Arab Statehood

French policy towards Sharif Hussein is important because of the
Sykes–Picot Agreement, which ‘entitled’ it to Syria, a country that
Sharif Hussein hoped to include under his rule. The French, in 1914,
like their British counterparts, planned to use and manipulate the office
of the Caliphate to push their war aims, and considered an Arab
descendant of the Prophet Mohammad in a free and independent Hijaz
to be an ideal candidate. Nevertheless, rather than a military and reli-
gious chief, the caliph was to be a ‘Pope of Islam, independent in the

82
 ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION
eyes of his believers, but in fact obliged to consider European influ-
ences’.62 Towards the end of 1915, discussions moved towards the pos-
sibility of establishing a political authority under Sharif Hussein’s rule
in Makkah. However, its territory was to be limited to the Arabian
Peninsula. Only the spiritual authority of Sharif Hussein, according to
the French, could be extended beyond its borders.63 Furthermore, the
French saw the British arrangements with Sharif Hussein in terms of
supporting their immediate war efforts, not as a step towards the
establishment of an Arab national entity.64 The French were willing to
recognize Sharif Hussein’s spiritual role among the Arabs, but not a
temporal one that would limit their own ambitions.
  In August 1916 the French government decided to enter into politi-
cal relations with The Hijaz, and sent a small diplomatic mission, con-
sisting of Muslim delegates from Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco, to con-
gratulate the Sharif of Makkah. The mission was sent by the President
of the Republic to the Sharif as ‘… head of a new Moslem community,
which has detached itself from the Ottoman Empire’.65 The French did
not wish to interfere with the Caliphate question; rather, its ostensible
purpose was ‘… to get in touch with the chief who will in future be
responsible for holy places and to settle with him the pilgrimage ques-
tion which concerns all French Muslim subjects’.66
  Even though the British considered direct French–Hijazi relations
inevitable in the light of France’s interests in ‘North Arabia’, they
wanted to prevent the French from having a say in the affairs of The
Hijaz. In November 1916 Raymond Poincaré, the President of the
French Republic, sent a letter to the Grand Sharif expressing his sup-
port for The Hijaz’s declaration of independence, which he said was
vital in the face of ‘the crimes that the leaders of [the] Constantinople
government have committed and the evils that they have practised’. In
this context, the French president congratulated the Sharif, and high-
lighted the need to safeguard the pilgrimage to Makkah, which many
French Muslims performed.67
  However, when Sharif Hussein declared himself the King of the
Arabs in October 1916, the French were careful in formulating their
response, as they feared it might threaten their plans for Syria. They
were ready to recognize him as a king, but the area of his sovereignty
remained open ended at the time. An agreement was reached in

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 THE HIJAZ
December 1916 when the French approved the British proposal to
recognize Sharif Hussein as the King of Hijaz.68 This designation was,
undoubtedly, a Western contrivance.
  It is useful to briefly mention the German attitude towards The Hijaz,
as the Germans were largely responsible for the idea of calling for jihad
against the Christian Entente.69 In fact, the Germans, at the beginning
of the war, had little interest in the Arabs of the Ottoman Empire, and
decided to leave the matter to their Ottoman ally. At the same time,
they did not anticipate the scale of the British designs in Arabia, and,
before the Revolt, considered Sharif Hussein loyal to the sultan.
  As the war went on, the Germans, whose grand designs centred on
the Berlin–Baghdad railway, established an Intelligence Bureau for the
East in Damascus. This was headed by Max von Oppenheim, a banker,
lawyer, and archaeologist, who attempted to bribe Emir Faisal into
concluding an agreement with the Central Powers. In March 1915
Oppenheim met Faisal, who promised to convince his father to call for
the Arabs to take up arms, in exchange for money, a limousine, and a
British rifle that had fallen into Turkish hands in Gallipoli. What the
Germans did not know was that by this time negotiations had already
been taking place with the British, who were offering the Arabs inde-
pendence from Constantinople. So, instead of jihad against the British,
Sharif Hussein called for an uprising against the Turks, Germany’s ally.70
  The Germans also entrusted some propaganda activities to the
Turks, who on 6 December 1917 spoke publicly in Beirut about the
 

Sykes–Picot Agreement of May 1916, accusing Sharif Hussein of

depending on the ‘enemies of Islam’.71 Donald McKale concludes that
the Germans did not acknowledge Arab nationalism or aspirations for
independence, as national self-determination did not fit with their war
aims. The asymmetric strategy of instigating a jihad had failed, when
national, rather than religious, conscientiousness took over the post-
First World War designs in the Arab territories.

Self-Determination in the Era of the League of Nations72

Although self-determination featured prominently in the Fourteen
Points that President Woodrow Wilson presented to the Versailles Peace
Conference, the concept had actually been championed several years
earlier by Vladimir Ulyanov, also known as Lenin.73

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 ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION
  Wilson never provides any precise definition of the term ‘self-deter-
mination’.74 This assessment of Wilson’s characterization of the concept
is derived from his Fourteen Points and his public statements.75 The
crux of the Wilsonian definition is probably best encapsulated in his
statement that ‘national aspirations must be respected; people may now
be dominated and governed only by their own consent’.76 The concept
of ‘national’ self-determination as understood by Wilson’s contempo-
raries, including William C. Bullit,77 Senator George W. Norris, and
   

Professor E. H. Carr, was alien to the Wilsonian concept of self-deter-

   

mination. As Trygve Throntveit points out, ‘such national self-determi-

nation—the principle that groups bound by common language or lines
of descent have a right to political and territorial independence—was
not one of Wilson’s Fourteen points and was never central to his peace
program’.78 This observation is shared by Allen Lynch, who adds that
‘the actual enunciation and application of the principle was deeply
affected by considerations of wartime strategy and diplomacy, above all
to counter defeatist tendencies following Russia’s withdrawal from the
war as well as to induce a separate Austrian peace’.79
  It is worth contrasting Wilson’s imagining of self-determination
with that of Lenin, who wrote on the right to self-determination for
two reasons. Firstly, he was aware of the ambiguity of the concept and
so he bluntly defined it as a right that, if honestly exercised, must lead
to the formation of a sovereign state (‘external’ self-determination).
Secondly, he saw the nationalist movements of his time as consequences
of an international class struggle requiring independence from alien
and imperial powers:
If we want to grasp the meaning of self-determination of nations, not
by juggling with legal definitions or ‘inventing’ abstract definitions …
we must inevitably reach the conclusion that the self-determination of
nations means the political separation of these nations from alien
national bodies, and the formation of an independent nation state.80
  Lenin saw no distinction between external self-determination—
secession from an existing state—and internal self-determination—
some form of self-government within an existing state. The right,
exclusively and necessarily, requires the formation of an independent
state, presumably by some form of secession. This is discussed in
greater detail in Chapter 6.

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 THE HIJAZ
  Robert Lansing, who served as Wilson’s Secretary of State, was
opposed to the use of the term ‘self-determination’ as a principle at
Versailles. In his letters to Wilson he questioned what the president had
in mind when he declared to the American Senate and the House of
Representatives that ‘self-determination is not a mere phrase. It is an
imperative principle of action which statesmen will henceforth ignore
at their peril.’81 He advised Wilson that in the absence of a practical and
definite geographical unit the application of the principle would be
dangerous to peace and stability.82
  Many of the delegates shared Lansing’s concerns, and, as a result,
the term ‘self-determination’ was not included in the Covenant of the
League of Nations. Lansing observed that the term was simply the
reincarnation of the phrase ‘consent of the governed’, which had had
currency with political philosophers for three centuries, but had been
completely ignored by statesmen for the same length of time.83
  Finally, Lansing confirmed that the concept of self-determination,
and Wilson’s championing of it, was a sham. Specifically, he stated: ‘In
the negotiations at Paris and in the formation of the foreign policy of
the United States … [President Wilson] has by his acts denied the exis-
tence of the right other than as the expression of a moral precept, as some-
thing to be desired, but generally unattainable in the lives of nations.’84

The Mandate System and its Legal Challenges

Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations established the
Mandate System on the basis of two suppositions.85 The first paragraph
of Article 22 emphasizes the ‘predicament’ of certain territories and
colonies which, as a result of the war, found themselves no longer
under the sovereignty of the states that formerly governed them. As
‘the well-being and development of of such peoples form a sacred trust
of civilization’, it was decided that ‘the securities for the performance
of this trust should be embodied in this covenant’.86
  The second supposition is entrenched in paragraph 2 of Article 22,
which states:
The best method of giving practical effect to this principle is that the
tutelage of such peoples should be entrusted to advanced nations who
by reason of their resources, their experiences or their geographical

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 ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION
position can best undertake this responsibility, and who are willing to
accept it, and that this tutelage should be exercised by them as
Mandatories on behalf of the League.
  The Mandate System was ostensibly intended to allow nations to
become independent after spending time under the ‘tutelage’ of a
Mandatory power. This aim, however, was simply rhetorical cover for the
continuation of familiar imperial motifs. The first of these deeper intents
was the enforcement of the 1916 Sykes–Picot deal. France became the
Mandatory power over Syria and Lebanon, and the British became the
Mandatory power over Palestine and Iraq, whose railways, ports, and
petroleum it coveted. The second objective was the creation of a legal
loophole in relation to German war reparations. If Germany’s former
colonies were simply ceded to the Allies, Germany would have been able
to offset their value against their war indemnities. The Mandate System
allowed Britain and France to seize control of these territories, while
framing the issue as some form of altruistic ‘duty’ to tutor these fledg-
lings in the enlightened ways of the community of nations.
  Lansing further observed:
If the advocates of the system intended to avoid through its operation
the appearance of taking enemy territory as the spoils of war, it was a
subterfuge that deceived no one. It seemed obvious from the very first
that the Powers, which under the old practice would have obtained
sovereignty over certain conquered territories, would not be denied
mandates over those territories.87
  A third fundamental aim was, unsurprisingly, the exploitation of the
natural wealth and resources of the Mandates, while maintaining the
guise of ‘civilization’—which was nothing more than a simple ruse.
The principal European powers showed an enthusiasm to take up their
‘teaching posts’ in territories possessing natural resources that could
be profitably developed.88 They were unwilling to accept Mandates in
areas barren of minerals or agricultural wealth. The concept of ‘civiliza-
tion’ was nothing more than another ambiguous and subjective term to
be exploited by the European powers. Or, as Leatherdale summarized:
‘At Versailles, the focus was on the League of Nations, creating new
European frontiers, and settling war reparations. At large, Britain was
concerned with her global position, and the new threats arisisng out of
her post-War weakness.’89 The view of the Arab Bureau, as recorded by

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 THE HIJAZ
Westrate, had been traditionally shaped along these lines as well: ‘The
bureau’s emphasis, first and last, was on reconciling British diplomatic
commitments with strategic requirements. Whenever these two quali-
fications came into conflict, the Savoy [Arab Bureau] accorded prefer-
ence to the imperial needs.’90
  If ‘civilization’ was a legitimate gauge for independence and sover-
eignty, the British and French would have had to face some very diffi-
cult questions concerning their conduct before and during the war. The
Ottoman Empire was considered a full-fledged member of the system
of jus gentium, or law of nations,91 and it was British policy before the
outbreak of war to preserve its integrity. The Ottoman concept of
autonomy, for instance, informed British colonial thinking.
  British representations to Sharif Hussein in the Hogarth Message92
further recognized the fact that the ‘Arab race’ had been the locus of a
nation, and should once again be given such an opportunity. In particu-
lar, the Message started with a ‘reaffirmation of the Entente’s determi-
nation that “the Arab race shall be given full opportunity of once again
forming a nation in the world”’.93 Sharif Hussein himself was seen as
the representative not of The Hijaz qua Hijaz, but rather as the legiti-
mate representative of al-bilad al-‘arabiyya (the Arab countries). This
was certainly the understanding he had had since 1915, and Hogarth’s
message in relation to the Arab ‘race’ can be read this way, especially
given the British view that nations were essentially collectives of eth-
nicities and races. His claim to a united Arab state was denied due to
his refusal to sign or acknowledge the Versailles Treaty, which was a
classic ‘no-win situation’. By signing the treaty, he would have been
acknowledging the validity of the Mandate System, whereas his refusal
would deny him a seat at the table, which would eventually be the
prelude to the loss of the Kingdom of Hijaz. Sharif Hussein was trapped
in an impossible dilemma constructed by the realpolitik and grand-
power bargains of the imperialist powers. He had less and less manoeu-
vrability as the Great Powers re-drafted and re-shaped the global chess-
board in their interests, re-casting their influence and sway in the
aftermath of the costly war. The emerging Mandate System was not
helping Hussein either.
  From a legal point of view, the Mandate System presented an
enormous challenge in relation to sovereignty. It was clear where

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 ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION
sovereignty resided under the former world order; but with the cre-
ation of the System under the League of Nations as an international
‘primate superior’, determining this presented a number of chal-
lenges.94 A series of legal questions was raised by Robert Lansing in
relation to sovereignty:
  1) Do those who have seized sovereignty transfer it, or does Germany
transfer it to the League of Nations? If so, how?
  2) Does the League assume possession of that sovereignty on its
renunciation by Germany? If so, how?
  3) Does the League merely direct the disposition of sovereignty with-
out taking possession of it?
  4) Assuming that the latter question is answered in the affirmative,
then after such disposition of the right to exercise sovereignty,
which will presumably be a limited right, where does the actual
sovereignty reside?
  5) The appointment of a mandatory to exercise sovereign rights over
territory is to create an agent for the real sovereign. But who is
the real sovereign?
  6) Is the League of Nations the sovereign, or is it a common agent of
the nations composing the League, to whom is confided solely the
duty of naming the mandatory and issuing the mandate?
  7) If the League is the sovereign, can it avoid responsibility for the
misconduct of the mandatory, its agent?
  8) If it is not the League, who is responsible for the mandatory’s
conduct?
  9) Assuming that the mandatory in faithfully performing the provi-
sions of the mandate unavoidably works an injustice upon another
party, can or ought the mandatory be held responsible? If not, how
can the injured party obtain redress? Manifestly, the answer is,
‘from the sovereign’, but who is the sovereign?
10) In the treaty of peace Germany will be called upon to renounce
sovereignty over her colonial possessions. To whom will the sover-
eignty pass?
11) If the reply is ‘The League of Nations’ the question is: does the
League possess the attributes of an independent state so that it can
function as an owner of territory? If so, what is it? A world state?
12) If the League does not constitute a world state, then the sovereignty
would have to pass to some national state.What national state? What
would be the relation of the national state to the League?95

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 THE HIJAZ
Arab Representation at the Paris Peace Conference
As an independent kingdom, The Hijaz participated in the negotiations,
and Sharif Hussein’s son, Emir Faisal, headed its delegation. Some
reports state that the French opposed the idea of receiving Emir Faisal
as a representative of the Arabs to Europe. They explained that they had
not been consulted, either before sending an invitation to Sharif
Hussein or before Emir Faisal was chosen. The French wanted the
promises of united Arab territories to be gradually withdrawn while
the ground was being prepared for the implementation of the Sykes–
Picot Agreement. In Emir Faisal’s trip to Paris, his participation in the
conference, and his demands for united Arab lands, the French feared
the annulment of Sykes–Picot.96 Upon his arrival, they attempted to
deny him entry to the negotiations.97
  The Foreign Office report notes:
[Faisal] came to Paris to claim for Arab-speaking peoples from
Alexandretta–Diarbekr southward to the Indian Ocean recognition
as independent sovereign peoples under guarantee of League of
Nations. … The confirmation of the states already existing in the
area, the adjustments of their boundaries with one another, with The
Hijaz and with the British at Aden, and the formation of such new
states as are required. Their boundaries are matters for arrangement
between us after the wishes of their respective inhabitants have been
ascertained.98
  Emir Faisal argued that a single, united Arab state must be created,
as all Arabs speak one language. The foreign policy of the kingdom
would be conducted through the government of The Hijaz. Initially, he
also demanded that all the territories must be independent and united,
without any Mandatory power or division.99
  Thus, Emir Faisal arrived in Paris to represent not only The Hijaz,
but also the Arab territories as a whole.100 He based his claim to the
right of self-determination by relying on principles contained in the
second point of President Wilson’s address at Mount Vernon of 4 July  

1918, which stated:

The settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty,
of economic arrangement, or of political relationship, upon the basis of
free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately con-
cerned, and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of

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 ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION
any other nation or people that may desire different settlement for the
sake of its own exterior influence or mastery.101
  Furthermore, the British report regarding the goals of Emir Faisal at
the conference also states that he advocated a federation of Arab states
with a real and substantial Arab government, with a common flag and
coinage, which would eventually become one unified entity. If the Allies
judged that outside assistance was vital, he would accept it coming from
only one foreign power—either Great Britain or the United States. He
opposed any division of the Arab territories, strongly resisted French
interference in Arab affairs, and maintained that Lebanon was an indivis-
ible part of Syria and should be kept as such. Faisal also expressed his
criticism of the government of India for its support of Imam Ibn Saud.
Emir Faisal compared Imam Ibn Saud’s militant Wahhabi movement with
Bolshevism, and saw a war with the Najd as inevitable.102
  Faisal used the language of ethnic nationalism in his memorandum
dated 1 January 1919, in which he stated:
 

The country from a line Alexandretta–Persia southward to [the] Indian

Ocean is inhabited by Arabs—by which we mean people of closely
related Semitic stocks, all speaking the one language, Arabic. … The
aim of the Arab nationalist movements is to unite the Arabs eventually
into one nation. … We believe that our ideal of Arab unity in Asia is
justified beyond need of argument.103
  In March 1919 a document was sent to Faisal from the Mesopotamian
Covenant Society delegating him to defend the rights of the inhabitants
of the province. A similar one followed in April from Aleppo, and in June
from ‘all denominations of Syria’, giving him full authority to represent
the people of the area, protect their interests, voice their opinions to the
Great Powers, and fight for their independence.104
  Emir Faisal’s arguments for Arab independence show that The Hijaz
was at that moment a de facto representative of a single Arab nation
that conformed to the predominantly ethnic notion of nationalism as
perceived by the international community at the time. At the negotiat-
ing table, The Hijaz was not acting for itself alone, but was rather rep-
resented a single, indivisible Arab nation.
  Despite active participation in the war effort, The Hijaz delegation
was not approached during the negotiations for the peace treaty with

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 THE HIJAZ
the Turks in relation to the territories to be detached from the
Ottoman Empire, which was concluded in Sèvres on 10 August 1920.
 

The British, however, wanted The Hijaz to sign the treaty afterwards,
as they thought that an endorsement from Makkah would make the
settlement more acceptable to Muslims.105 British officials told Emir
Faisal that the Hijazis could not be included in the negotiations regard-
ing the former Ottoman territories unless Sharif Hussein had ratified
the Treaty of Versailles.106 Had he signed it, however, it would have
meant that he had accepted the Mandate System. The paradox is, there-
fore, that he was not allowed to participate in discussions regarding the
Mandate System unless he first accepted it.
  The Hijazi delegations to European cities were trying to present the
Arab point of view and make the case for their inclusion in the negotia-
tions. In May 1919 the British received the delegation, who expressed
their fear that ‘[the] frontiers of mandatory provinces were being
delimitated without any expression of people concerned’.107 They also
reasoned that, since Armenia was to be placed under one Mandate,
they also wished all the Arabic-speaking countries to be likewise placed
under one Mandate and not divided up among two or three. To this
end, ‘they argued [at] considerable length as to the similarity of condi-
tions between Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia’.108 Lord Hardinge,
who hosted the delegation, argued that it would be impossible for only
one European power to be in charge of such a large piece of territory,
and that in any case, none had sufficient funds to govern it.109
  As an independent state, The Hijaz was one of the founding signato-
ries of the Covenant of the League of Nations. However, when Habib
Loutfallah, the Hijazi ambassador, travelled to Geneva to take part in
further discussions within the framework of the League of Nations, he
was met with a familiar objection: ‘As the Hedjaz appears in the
Covenant of the League of Nations attached to the Treaty of Versailles
as an original member, it would be necessary for King Hussein to ratify
this treaty before the Hedjaz could become a member of the League.’110
However, the British correspondence also noted that ‘the reason why
it had not ratified up to the present lay in its objection to the carrying
out of Article 22 of the Covenant’,111 which referred to the Mandate
System. The System was to be a compromise between the European
powers’ imperial designs and Wilson’s ideal of self-determination

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 ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION
included in his fourteen-point programme for world peace.112 Antony
Anghie argued that the Mandate System was based on the principle that
it was possible to establish a universal system of self-government for
nation-states.113 In addition, the status of all the territories was then
determined in accordance with European international law; and the
European powers were to teach the people within the Mandates how
to govern themselves.114
  The British also argued that if the Treaty of Versailles had been rati-
fied by The Hijaz, and the state had taken up its function in the family
of nations, then it would have had international protection against its
ambitious neighbours, including Imam Ibn Saud.115 Sharif Hussein,
however, did not wish to ratify either Versailles or the Treaty of Sèvres
of August 1920 on the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, because it
required him to legitimize the Mandate System, which he simply could
not do: the Syrian nationalists objected and the Palestinians were out-
raged. Sharif Hussein, despite the large sums of money offered to him
by the British, refused to ratify any treaty that spoke of the Mandate
System (such as San Remo in 1920), unless the Balfour Declaration was
abandoned.116 In a statement made in February 1921 he emphasized
that he could not ‘affix his name to a document assigning Palestine to
the Zionists and Syria to foreigners’.117 In the long term Sharif
Hussein’s erratic decisions and shifting position had a negative effect on
his relationship with the British, who realized that their old ally was
disruptive to their goal of imperial control in the region.118
  The Covenant of the League of Nations further emphasized the con-
cept of ethnocentric nationalism as a prerequisite for statehood. In this
context, Sharif Hussein was recognized as the King of Hijaz and not the
King of the Arabs, as was initially intended—a crucial step.119
  The legacy of the Mandates has had a lasting effect on territoriality
across the Arab world.120 Before European control, most Arabs were
content to live under a fragmentary rule, and only a small elite carried
a belief that they are a part of qawm, an Arab nation. Arabism and
nationalist sentiments came as a reaction to Turkification within the
Ottoman Empire, and intensified greatly with the opposition of the
French- and British-controlled spheres,121 reinforcing the idea that
Arab aspirations to statehood and self-determination were a reaction
to if not a result of colonial designs.

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 THE HIJAZ
San Remo
Before the Treaty of Sèvres, the San Remo Conference was convened
on 25 April 1920 with four objectives in mind. The first was to con-
 

clude a peace treaty with Turkey. The second was to further discuss and
set out the obligations of Germany under the Treaty of Versailles.
Thirdly, it was meant to address the Allies’ position in relation to the
newly constituted Bolshevik Russia. Fourthly, and most importantly,
the conference would establish and flesh out the League of Nations
Mandates in the Middle East.
  The discussion surrounding Mandates was mostly concerned with
Palestine in the light of the Balfour Declaration. A unique feature of the
San Remo Resolution was that it provisionally recognized the Mandates
as ‘states’. Clause b of the resolution states:
The High Contracting Parties agree that Syria and Mesopotamia shall,
in accordance with the fourth paragraph of Article 22, Part I (Covenant
of the League of Nations), be provisionally recognised as independent
States, subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance
by a mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The
boundaries of the said States will be determined, and the selection of
the Mandatories made, by the Principal Allied Powers.122
  This would have been considered an aberration under international
law. It was a clear and incontrovertible principle of international law
that states were prohibited from the premature recognition of states
that did not yet meet the criteria of statehood. There was a doctrine
that existed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries known as ‘per-
missive’ recognition whereby the ‘parent’ state could recognize a non-
state entity as a state, which would permit the rest of the international
community to follow suit.123 This would have been the norm during
the colonial era, where newly independent states required the acquies-
cence and recognition of the ‘parent’ state before being recognized by
others. The premature recognition of a state would otherwise be
deemed an unlawful intervention in the affairs of the parent.
Oppenheim made the following observation:
The question is precisely when recognition as a new state may be given,
as distinguished from the recognition as a belligerent authority. For an
untimely and precipitate recognition as a new state is more than a viola-

94
 ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION
tion of the dignity of the parent state. It is an unlawful act, and it is
frequently maintained that such untimely recognition amounts to
intervention.124
  As discussed earlier, the Mandates differed from colonies in a
number of respects. Had the Mandates been newly acquired colonies,
the Ottomans and Germans would be entitled to offset any repara-
tions against territory ceded.125 The declaration that the Mandates
were independent states had to be reconciled with all of the neces-
sary criteria such as effective government, defined territory, popula-
tion, and the ability to enter into international relations with other
states as a function of sovereignty.126 Otherwise, the San Remo
Resolution would have been in violation of the prohibition on the
premature recognition of states.
  In other words, San Remo represented a legal pretence, echoing
many of the challenges expressed by Robert Lansing in Paris. It further
demonstrates an early tendency on the part of the major powers to
prop up and maintain artificial administrations to the benefit of a
metropole—what we would now call imperialism—and which
remains, in some way, a contemporary reality.

The Collapse of the Hijazi–British Relationship

As far as the system of government in The Hijaz was concerned, upon
assuming independence, Sharif Hussein adopted the Ottoman system
of administration to deal with the pilgrimage and its revenues. At the
same time, while The Hijaz had enjoyed a semi-democratic system
since 1908 (majlis al-nuwwab), he sought to return to the Arab rulership
structure based on ties with the ‘ulama’ and the tribal chiefs. Thus, in
the period between 1916 and 1924, he formalized the first Council of
Ministers. Beginning on 4 October 1916, under the leadership of
 

Shaykh Abdullah Siraj and the majlis al-shuyukh (Senate), chaired by

Mohammad Saleh al-Shaibi, one of the guardians of the Key to the
Ka’aba. He also established several Councils of Deputies and People
and also the Consul­tative Council of the Caliphate.127
  It is often assumed—and used as counter-propaganda—that Sharif
Hussein remained a close British ally after the war. However, the back
and forth on the Mandate system was opposed by the Sharif, and

95
 THE HIJAZ
caused a breakdown in Britain–Hijaz relations. British correspondence
proves that serious problems date back to 1920 and the time immedi-
ately after San Remo.128 For instance, one report read:
The decisions announced after the conference, although they could not
have come as a complete surprise to the king, were a deep disappoint-
ment to him and led him to give open expression to the mistrust of the
good intention of His Majesty’s government. … In spite of those deci-
sions, it would still have been possible to appease him had the French
coup de force in Damascus not taken place. That incident, or rather our
tacit approval of it, has, I am afraid, rendered the continuance of
friendly relations with King Hussein impossible.129
  The document also states that the king was aware that British support
was diminishing, but his desire to preserve his sovereignty was more
significant than maintaining good relations with an imperial power that,
after the war, had no credibility among the Arabs and Muslims.130
  One idea discussed in the correspondence was to remove Sharif
Hussein and replace him with one of his sons:
It can only be concluded from his recent behaviour that he is endeav-
ouring to goad His Majesty’s Government into deposing Him. … The
question of succession is, however, still one of difficulty. Should Emir
Ali succeed it is certain that the present unsatisfactory conditions of
government in The Hijaz would be maintained, in fact they might
become worse. … It would be much more desirable from the point of
view of HM Government for either Emir Feisal or Emir Abdullah to
succeed to the throne, but it is not easy to see how this could be
brought about.131
  British–Hijazi negotiations regarding post-war arrangements
reached a deadlock as Sharif Hussein refused to sign any document that
would legitimize foreign control of Palestine and Syria, as he saw it as
a betrayal of the British war promises. In early 1924 the Sharif changed
his ‘international community’ policies and began campaigning for
widespread Arab and Islamic support for the Caliphate. That January he
visited the Arab lands north of The Hijaz. Teitelbaum sees striking evi-
dence that the Sharif wanted to demonstrate to Muslims that his sup-
port reached beyond The Hijaz in an article published in al-Qibla on
11 February 1924, describing the mass receptions of Sharif Hussein in
 

Transjordan and the hopes of the masses for the return of the

96
 ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION
Caliphate.132 With the abolition of the Caliphate, Sharif Hussein for-
mally welcomed bay‘as to become khalifa on 12 March 1924 during his
 

trip to Amman.133
  Sharif Hussein was aware of the post-war developments in Turkey:
the fast-growing Turkish nationalist movement, and the imminent col-
lapse of the Caliphate. His decision to claim the office of caliph was not
hasty or impulsive. Rather, it involved negotiations, consultations, and
secret contacts. In November 1922 the Turkish Grand National
Assembly voted in favour of separating the Caliphate from the Sultanate
and removed all temporal powers from the Ottomans.134 The Caliphate
was maintained as an exclusively spiritual office. When Mustafa Kemal
Atatürk became president and head of the Turkish state in October
1923, he continued campaigns against the persistence of the Caliphate
in Turkey. Atatürk saw the Caliphate as standing in the way of his mod-
ernization plans, and abandoned it altogether in March 1924.135 With
the British gradually withdrawing their support, Sharif Hussein saw the
Caliphate as the last possible strategic direction towards statehood in
the new order. He pursued this by focusing on maintaining the integ-
rity of the umma, instead of engaging with the strange new worldview
created by the First World War, which held that ethnocentric national-
ism (or power) was a prerequisite for statehood.
  Because of his seat in the Holy City, and his lineage, it was perhaps
natural for Sharif Hussein to assume the Caliphate once the title had
been abandoned by Mustafa Kemal’s regime in Turkey.136 Kemal’s aboli-
tion of the Sultanate and the Caliphate offered Sharif Hussein a justifi-
cation for assuming the latter office. His son, Emir Abdullah, in an
interview with The Manchester Guardian, explained why. The Caliphate,
he said, was an ‘Arab institution’. ‘The prophet was an Arab, the Qur’an
is in Arabic, the Holy Places are in Arabia, and the caliph should be an
Arab of the tribe of Quraysh.’137 Thus Sharif Hussein devoted his last
year in The Hijaz to pursuing the affection of the Islamic world and his
deep concern for Islam as a way to overcome his political isolation.138
However, his power was already diminishing, and under attack, ideo-
logically as well as militarily, from the Wahhabi Ikhwan, who began
their offensive on The Hijaz with the silent support of the British. Thus,
Sharif Hussein’s legitimacy was questioned, and few recognized his
Caliphate. With his fall, the office of the Caliphate vanished for decades,
as we shall explain in the following chapters.

97
 4

HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
AND THE NEW INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM

Whereas the previous chapter addressed the impact of ethnic drivers

on self-determination at the inception of the post-First World War
international system, this chapter discusses the territorial role played
by The Hijaz itself. Rather than continuing with the history of the
League of Nations period, following on from Chapter 3, this chapter
also re-examines the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as that
period provides the essential background needed to explain the forma-
tion of Saudi Arabia.

Historical Context: Invasion, Conquest, and the Absorption of the

State of Hijaz
The Saudi dynasty has gone through three political iterations over the
past 400 years or so,1 beginning with the first Saudi Islamic state, the
Emirate of Dir‘iyya, which existed between 1745 and 1818. This was
based on the Saudi–Wahhabi alliance, sealed in 1157H (approximately
1744–5). The alliance emerged when a puritan revivalist, Shaykh
Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, who preached a radical jihadi message
that proved popular among nomadic tribesmen, was granted protection
by, and was bound by ideology to, Imam Mohammad ibn Saud, a chief-
tain of al-Dir‘iyya in Najd, a plateau constituting the centre of Arabia.

99
 THE HIJAZ
The Saudi patriarch agreed to support the shaykh’s demand for jihad and
guaranteed him control over religious affairs and advocacy. In return, he
was given a source of Islamic legitimacy, and was acknowledged as the
political leader of the Muslim community.2 To explore the nature of this
bargain, the following sections will discuss doctrinal and political
aspects of the Wahhabi movement in the context of statehood.
  Rule over The Hijaz was chief among the goals of the Salafi Wahhabi
movement, and for two centuries it tried to bring the province under
Saudi dominion. Despite strong resistance in The Hijaz, Saud ibn
Abdulaziz ibn Mohammad ibn Saud, the third ruler of the Emirate of
Dir‘iyya, during the reign of Sharif Ghalib, captured Taif and Makkah
in 1803, and Medina a year later. After this, the jihad carried Saudi
arms throughout Arabia, as far as the Shi’ite holy center of Karbala in
Iraq. The Ottomans reacted by sending troops under Mohammad ‘Ali,
the Viceroy of Egypt, into The Hijaz in 1811.3 His campaign succeeded
in retaking Medina in 1812, and Makkah the following year. Ibrahim
Pasha, Mohammad ‘Ali’s son, did not end the campaign there. He car-
ried out a campaign of eradication in Najd, capturing Dir‘iyya in
1818.4 The Hijaz was never a part of the more limited Saudi resurrec-
tion, the second Saudi Islamic state, known as the Emirate of Najd
(1824–91), which encompassed much less territory than its predeces-
sor, stretching, instead, from central Arabia to the province of al-Hasa
in the east.5
  Abdulaziz ibn Abdulrahman (1876–1953) was known historically as
Ibn Saud, and was originally styled as Imam, and later Sultan, of Najd.
He later became king after conquering The Hijaz and establishing the
modern state of Saudi Arabia. After spending his childhood in exile in
Kuwait, he recaptured Riyadh in 1902 and began his expansion into the
Arabian Peninsula, eventually establishing the third Saudi Islamic state.6
His conquest of The Hijaz effectively began in May 1919 with the battle
of Turaba, a disputed oasis between Najd and The Hijaz.7 From then on,
relations between Imam Ibn Saud and Sharif Hussein became openly
hostile.8 By 1922 the prospect of war between the two was clear and
imminent. The Wahhabi militia, the Ikhwan Man Ta‘a Allah
(Brotherhood of God Obedient), were openly threatening to take over
The Hijaz.9 In January 1924 a conference was held in Kuwait, during
which Arab leaders met to discuss border arrangements away from the
eyes and ears of the British Foreign Office.10

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 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
  Sharif Hussein refused to discuss any border issues with Imam Ibn
Saud unless he withdrew from territories belonging to The Hijaz and
paid compensation to the affected tribes. By this time the British had cut
off their subsidies to Arab chiefs, and Imam Ibn Saud no longer felt
inhibited by Whitehall from moving on The Hijaz. Nevertheless, he did
not rush and, despite the eagerness of his jihadi troops for further con-
quest, he took up a policy of co-operation with Islamic nations outside
Arabia as a way of securing his diplomatic flanks before resorting to
military action. He also made much of Sharif Hussein’s decision to block
the way of Najdi pilgrims, a move that was intended to curb Wahabbi
transgressions within Makkah and among international pilgrims, as a
pretext to legitimize his aggression in the eyes of fellow Muslims.11
  Imam Ibn Saud justified his aggression against the neighbouring
kingdom in a letter to Sir Reader Bullard, the British Agent and consul
in Jeddah. ‘The people of The Hijaz and the people of Najd’, he wrote,
‘are not inclined to conclude peace with the sharifs because of the
troubles and oppression which they endured and I cannot do otherwise
than give due consideration to their views’.12 He therefore attributed
his actions to the furtherance of the will of the people by annexing his
neighbouring sovereign state by force.

The Taif Massacre

At this stage, the Wahhabis needed no persuasion to invade The Hijaz.
Their offensive began with a march on Taif, a mountain town used for
summer retreats,13 also the ‘chief oasis of the Hedjaz’,14 as well as a
strategic area from a military conquest perspective. With respect to the
latter, Taif stood as one of The Hijaz’s natural barriers, and the invading
army probably recognized the strategic importance of capturing this
high ground at the onset of its offensive. After a short battle, the
Ikhwan forces, led by Khalid ibn Luwai and Sultan ibn Bajad, overpow-
ered Taif’s defences and entered the town in early September 1924.
Over the course of the next thirty-six hours they systematically mas-
sacred the city’s civilians. In the words of al-Enazy, ‘Ibn Saud’s Ikhwan
… reportedly committed an appaling massacre against its [Taif’s] civil-
ian inhabitants, sending a wave of fear throughout Mecca and Jeddah,
now wide open to a similar fate’.15 Their brutality and acts of pillage

101
 THE HIJAZ
echoed far outside the Arabian Peninsula.16 Reports of the numbers of
those killed vary widely, with the higher estimate putting the toll at
15,000,17 and one of the lowest estimates given by Mark Weston, who
highlights the brutality and terror, yet puts the total death toll at 300
‘men, women and children’.18 The details of the slaughter are horrific.
One eyewitness reported: ‘They cut throats like sacrificial livestock and
had their bodies thrown in the open wells, while the Qadi and the
‘ulama’ were butchered in the area surrounding the mosque of Ibn
Abbas, the tomb of one of the Prophet’s children.’19 Notable religious
families were sought out for assassination so as to clear the ground for
a new form of religious authority. A wave of people fled Taif, on foot
(some bare), down the mountain to Makkah, where their accounts and
appearence caused chaos in the Holy City and social unrest among the
residents and pilgrims, leading to mass panic.20
  Following the invasion, Imam Ibn Saud demanded that Sharif
Hussein be deposed, and this was carried out by Hijazi political elites,
who replaced him with his eldest son, ‘Ali ibn al-Hussein. The new king
ordered the evacuation of all women and children from Makkah to
prevent another massacre on an even larger scale.21 Imam Ibn Saud
himself was not present during the slaughter at Taif,22 and it was
reported that he ‘wept with dismay and disgust when he heard what
had happened at Taif’.23 In fact, even Hans Kohn, who in 1934 praised
the statesmanship of Ibn Saud, recognized the awfulness of the massa-
cre and suggested that Ibn Saud intervened to put an end to the atroci-
ties: ‘In Taif the traditional massacre and looting followed. Ibn Saud was
not present, but as soon as he arrived a sharp stop was put to all
excesses of that kind.’24 Similarly, Kohn recognized the motives of Ibn
Saud’s followers which led to the horrors in Taif:
His followers were chiefly driven by two traditional motives: the desire
for booty and the religious fanaticism of the Wahhabi puritans against the
Holy Cities with their relative luxury, corruption and deviation from the
original faith. In that way their attitude resembled that of Protestant zeal-
ots of the seventeenth century against the Pope and Rome.25
  On 8 September British Agents in Jeddah requested the Foreign
 

Office to send them a warship, fearing that if Makkah fell, the admin-
istration of Jeddah would probably break down, in which case the
tribes might possibly attack the town for foodstuffs that they would so

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 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
gravely need. The only way of escape for the British and other foreign
subjects fleeing from Makkah would then be closed. HMS Clematis, a
corvette, arrived in Jeddah from Sudan two days later, together with
the French armed yacht Diana.26 Port records in the Hashemite
Jordanian Archives, however, suggest that the warships actually block-
aded the port of Jeddah, resulting in a famine.
  British diplomats played down the situation in their initial reports.
One commented that ‘the Wahhabis acted well at Taif’, and the British
Agent in Jeddah wrote in his dispatches that he was ‘not convinced that
the story of murders was not based on work of robbers during inter-
regnum, skilfully embroided by the king, who directly and indirectly
was spreading fantastic stories of atrocities’.27 As more refugees arrived
from Taif and it became clear that a number of British subjects had been
killed or robbed during the attack, the evidence of Wahhabi brutality
became clear.Yasin Khan, the Indian Pilgrimage Officer, wrote: ‘After
the occupation of the town the Wahhabis behaved most brutally, killing
the peaceful inhabitants treacherously and indiscriminately. About five
to eight hundred men are said to have been killed. … Seven men were
taken out to ransom of 7,000 pounds.’28
 Dr Munir-ud-Din submitted another account of events as described
 

by his patients who had fled Taif:

On 2 September they heard firing of bullet outside the walls of Taif. …
 

Ibn Saud’s men entered the town in the afternoon of 5 September with
 

the words:
‘Heaven for you! Slaughter these mushrikeen [idolators], these kuffar
[unbelievers], these enemies of Allah!’ They then made their way
towards the tomb of Abdullah bin Abbas, demolished the cupola, lev-
elled the grave to the ground and set fire there with the words:
‘Demolish the cupola of the mushrikeen that they worship.’
From that time onwards the bullets were shot all over indiscriminately
into the houses of the town until 8am on the Saturday. … When they
entered a house they levelled their guns and pointed swords and knives
towards the inmates and demanded that they surrender all gold and
other coins. … As soon as gold was collected the adults were often shot
dead. … On Saturday, some people were made to carry the dead bod-
ies towards the tomb of Abdullah bin Abbas. The dead bodies were
thrown there with the words that these kaffirs need not be buried but
should be left there for dogs to devour. … Dead bodies were also tied

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 THE HIJAZ
with rope and dragged by mules. … Some soldiers of the Hashemite
government who were left in the town threw off their uniforms and
joined the common people as Arabs so as to be saved from being
slaughtered.29
  The document also points out that Hasan Salama and his family were
not supporters of Sharif Hussein. This disproves the cynical view of the
British that reports of the massacres were engineered by Hussein.
  The testimony of another eyewitness, Runsi Ihsanullah, a British
subject, described how the inhabitants of Taif were taken outside the
town into Shubrah with no personal belongings or clothing except
what they were wearing, while the Wahhabis collected all the valuables
found in their homes. In the next three days no food was given to the
captured, and when they were allowed to return to Taif, most decided
to flee to other villages, as nothing was left in their homes. During that
exodus many died on the way with no access to water. That event
brought the estimated number of dead into the thousands.30 Another
account states that the survivors were made to walk to Makkah bare-
foot in their underclothes with instructions to deliver a message that
the Wahhabis were on their way, and those who supported Sharif
Hussein would ‘meet the fate of Taif, otherwise they would be
spared’.31 The atrocities reflect the extreme poverty of the Bedouin
from the famished desert tribes, but also the political extremism inher-
ent in the Wahhabi doctrine. In order to justify the killing of fellow
Muslims they first proclaimed them kuffar and mushrikin. They also
reportedly called the conventional Sunni admiration of the the Prophet
Mohammad a form of idolatry.32
  All these atrocities and dreadful events are noted here to highlight
the brutality and unchecked calamities that fanaticism brought on a
peaceful people at the beginning of the conquest of The Hijaz by
Wahhabi Ikhwan fighters. At the same time, given the applicable inter-
national legal framework and imperial calculations of the Great
Powers at the time, these events produced no international response.
In fact, al-Enazy best captures the effect the British had on Ibn Saud
and his forces:
On 13 September the British government sent a letter addressed to the
 

Ikhwan commanders … declaring Britain’s ‘neutrality’ in the conflict

and requesting that the safety of the British subjects … be assured. …

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 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
Ibn Saud and his Ikhwan took the British message as ‘a good omen’, a
signal of Britain’s effective sanction of Saudi annexation of Hijaz.33
  All in all, this very dark page of Middle Eastern and Saudi Arabian
history highlights the absence of protective frameworks, even for piv-
otal First World War allies and League of Nations signatories such as
The Hijaz, in the face of a brutal and determined regional aggressor. In
fact, since the aggressor’s actions and prospects for regional control
seemed to be more compatible with the then structure of the global
powers’ chessboards, the former British ally was left alone in the face
of brute force, to be invaded, overtaken, and, eventually, assimilated.

The Birth of Hijazi Nationalism:The Hijaz National Party

In the period before Sharif Hussein stepped down as king, Hijazi urban
and tribal elites took up the struggle of maintaining their integrity in
the event of a breakdown of the Hashemite rule and the imposition of
Saudi power.34 The notable houses of Makkah and Jeddah began to
organize just as they had before Sharif Hussein. They formed a joint
association, mobilized the support of the Hijazi diaspora (many of
whom were in political exile),35 and began to speak openly about the
abdication of Hussein as a way of stopping the atrocities and saving the
state of The Hijaz.36 At this point Emir ‘Ali would become the consti-
tutional head of state and the government would be renamed ‘Hijazi’
rather than ‘Arab’. As it was believed that Hussein’s claim to suzerainty
over all Arabs was the casus belli with Imam Ibn Saud, a relinquishing of
the claim would open the way for the continuing independence of the
territory.37 In this way, the Caliphate and the claims over the rest of the
‘Arab territories’ were abandoned without diminishing the danger in
the slightest: Imam Ibn Saud had declared that there could be no peace
in The Hijaz as long as any Hashemite remained in power.38
  On 4 October 1924 several of the Makkan and Jeddan notables from
 

the joint association, including ‘Abd al-Rauf al-Sabban, Tahir al-Dab-

bagh, Mohammed al-Taweel, and Fuad al-Khatib, reconstituted them-
selves as al-Hizb al-Watani al-Hijazi—The Hijaz National Party
(HNP)—and declared that ‘the nation has recognised His Highness
Emir Ali as the only constitutional King of The Hijaz’.39 The party
immediately set out its programme, which was to establish a constitu-

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 THE HIJAZ
tional state to govern the Hijazi nation. This constituted an abrupt shift
to a nationalist rhetoric that was limited to The Hijaz, in effect bringing
the elite’s aspirations into line with what had been agreed five years
before at the League of Nations.
  As a first course of action, the leaders of the newly formed party
urgently corresponded with countries throughout the Islamic world to
plead their case for protection and immediate intervention against
Wahhabi transgressions, in addition to calling for the negotiation of an
agreement with Imam Ibn Saud and, potentially, Great Britain.40 They
also stressed that the people of The Hijaz must stir themselves to save
their country and its people.41
  The party issued a widely circulated statement, which read:
Since the whole of the Hijazi nation has fallen under a situation of gen-
eral chaos as a result of the defeat of the defending army and the inabil-
ity of the government to preserve our souls and our property, and since
the Holy Mosques and the whole of Hijazi territory are targeted by a
catastrophic and destructive danger, and since The Hijaz is a Holy Land,
its affairs are the concern of the multitude of Muslims. For that reason,
the nation has conclusively decided to force Sharif Hussein to abdicate
from the throne and he shall withdraw to dwell in any such country he
chooses. As for what we fear from internal volatility and agitation in
popular opinion, the nation undertook to pledge baiy’a to His Majesty
Ali The First, as constitutional monarch over The Hijaz only, provided
that he abide by the opinion of the Muslim nations as pertaining to the
well-being of this sacred country.42
And the nation has sent letters to Imam Ibn Al-Saud asking him to send
emissaries to negotiate and that the population of The Hijaz, after this
notification and action, places full responsibility on all Muslims to
hurry to save the country by stopping the armies of Imam Ibn Al-Saud
at the last point they reached, and to send ambassadors as fast as they
can possibly conceive to conclude the negotiation and to implement
effective measures to protect the territory.
The Hijaz National Party in Jeddah, on its behalf, Mohammad Taher
Al-Dabbagh, 4 October 1924.43
 

  The Hijaz National Party thereby assumed a realistic strategy: it did

not call for a widespread Arab revolt, but adopted the policy of Hijazi
nationalism as an ideological platform against Wahhabi ideology, and to
ensure the territorial and political integrity of The Hijaz.44 The party

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 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
also sought to make the country free from ‘impure intrigues’ and ‘for-
eign influence’.45 The British Agent in Jeddah reported that the HNP
was ‘very strong’ and willing to set up a government with no connec-
tion to the family of the king as a first step to making peace with Ibn
Saud.46 Influential Hijazi expatriates were in close contact with the
party, focusing on Islamic diplomatic efforts to protect The Hijaz and
its people and the status of the Holy Places. Sayyid Abdullah Dahlan, a
shaykh of the Grand Mosque in ‘political exile’ as Mufti of Singapore
and South East Asia, wrote to the shaykhdom of al-Azhar in Cairo:
I bring your attention to The Hijaz and shedding of blood that was
committed in her and the enveloping chaos over her. A telegraph from
the Association of Hijaz was reported to my attention in Jeddah; you
will find its content attached. Upon its arrival I transmitted to you a
telegraph so as to inquire about what action the Authority [of the
Caliphate Congress] took to protect The Hijaz and her people. Duty
dictates that the Authority work towards the independence of The Hijaz
and the formation of a constitutional government under the watchful
eyes of all Muslims, so that this may be a resurrection from the atroci-
ties she faces. I had communicated to several destinations the establish-
ment of commissions to fulfil these duties. I still await a telegraphic
answer from you so that I may bring good tidings to the hearts of more
than 50 million Muslims and through which I can encourage them to
do good, God willing.47
  As shown in this passage, the bloodshed and the impact of the
Wahhabi aggression ignited serious concerns throughout the Islamic
world, which felt a responsibility to act in order to protect The Hijaz
and its Holiest Sites in these turbulent times. The attack was seen not
only as an act of aggression against The Hijaz, but also as a threat to the
collective interests of all Muslims whose common heritage was under
imminent threat as chaos, fear, and insecurity was gradually engulfing
the Holy Lands.
  As for the British, King ‘Ali’s new government gave priority to the
treaty with Great Britain.48 It was long in the making, and was never
ratified because of Sharif Hussein’s persistence over the Palestinian
issue. In any case, the British Foreign Office refused to sign it as it did
not want to undertake any legal obligation towards ‘Ali, who, as they
said, ‘may not be in a position to give effect to his side of the treaty’.49
This action indicates that the British officials did not believe that King

107
 THE HIJAZ
‘Ali’s reign would last. It was also clear that Whitehall would shed no
tears over the end of Hashemite rule in The Hijaz, since Imam Ibn Saud
by this time was seen as a more tractable ally, and one who seemed to
understand British interest in the Arab territories.

‘Hijaz is for Hijazis’: Saving Statehood and the Promise

of Self-Governance
In October 1924 Emir Abdullah of Transjordan sent a letter to the chief
British representative to ask for help in mediating The Hijaz–Najd con-
flict. Abdullah argued his case by calling the Wahhabis an ‘uncivilised
sect’ and recalling British–Hijazi friendship dating back to the Arab
Revolt and the British guarantees of Arab self-determination.50
However, the British government had decided on a policy of ‘strict
neutrality with respect to Hijaz and Najd hostilities’.51 This was partly
the result, once again, of the sensitivities of Britain’s Muslim subjects
in India, including the Caliphate Committee of India, whose represen-
tatives expressed their opinion in a telegram:
The committee is emphatically of the opinion that in no case can British
or other non-Muslim intervention in the sanctuary of Islam be toler-
ated by Muslims of India and the world. No interest of British Indian
Muslims in Hijaz, nor safety of pilgrim routes, can equal supreme
importance of keeping the Holy Land of Islam free from non-Muslim
interference in any shape or under any pretext.52
  Great Britain, as the colonial power in Muslim India, could not
therefore risk popular unrest by its subjects on such a sensitive issue as
sending military support to the Holy Land given the imperative of
keeping it free from foreign, or at least non-Muslim, interference.
  In the face of the desperate situation in The Hijaz, and given the
lack of military support from elsewhere, King ‘Ali asked Great Britain
for a loan. The Acting Agent and Consul in Jeddah advised his superi-
ors in London that the state of hostilities between The Hijaz and Najd,
and the storm of Muslim disapproval in India that would be sure to be
aroused by any sort of British intervention, official or private, in The
Hijaz, meant that ‘His Majesty’s government would be well advised to
give no official sanction or approval to any financial venture in this
country at present’.53

108
 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
  King ‘Ali left Makkah for Jeddah on 14 October 1925, as he was
 

aware that he could not defend it against Wahhabi aggression. At the

same time, The Hijaz National Party was carefully observing the
Wahhabi approach to Makkah, and was left with no illusions about
their objectives. In order to save Hijazi statehood, they took up nego-
tiations, pressing for an official declaration that The Hijaz would retain
its separate identity.54 The Wahhabi general Khalid ibn Luwai al-Abdali
laid down only one condition to the Hijazis: King ‘Ali must leave the
country. If they secured his abdication, all the officials would be main-
tained in their posts, no Wahhabi troops would be sent to Jeddah, and
the town would be left to govern itself. If the Hijazis decided other-
wise, Jeddah would be taken by force and would share the fate of Taif.55
  With Hijazi forces losing more territory to Imam Ibn Saud’s forces,
and Britain’s tepid support dwindled to strict neutrality, King ‘Ali sug-
gested in the summer of 1925 that Egypt could intervene, and he even
‘promised King Fuad the post of caliph if he [would] intervene and bring
about favourable settlement of present Arabian dispute’.56 In his corre-
spondence, as reported by the British, ‘King Ali reiterates with many
fulsome phrases the admiration felt for King Fuad by the people of the
Hedjaz, who will he states, recognise none else as caliph’.57 In such a
desperate situation, even this supreme title became a bargaining chip.
  It has been reported that in August 1925, during the Wahhabi
incursion into Medina, the tomb of Hamza, the Prophet’s uncle, had
been destroyed, and that several bullets had hit the dome of the Great
Mosque, which also contains the Prophet’s tomb. These acts of van-
dalism caused a stir among the Muslims of India and Persia, and Emir
Abdullah of Transjordan expressed much concern and informed the
British that he wanted to raise bedouins against the Sultan of Najd.58
This the British vetoed: ‘While His Majesty’s Government would
deeply regret any damage to the Holy Places arising from hostilities,
it must insist on a continued observance by Transjordan of complete
neutrality.’59
  In December 1925, having served less than a year on the throne,
King ‘Ali bowed to the inevitable and surrendered The Hijaz to Saudi
forces, which concluded the nine-year lifespan of the first modern Arab
state. The monarch withdrew from Jeddah on 22 December and sought
 

refuge in the British Mandated territory of Iraq.60

109
 THE HIJAZ
  An agreement was negotiated between King ‘Ali and Imam Ibn Saud
in which the latter promised to retain in their posts all civil govern-
ment employees whom ‘he finds capable of performing their duties
honestly’ and guaranteed the ‘personal safety of the civilian and mili-
tary employees, the sharifs, all the natives of Jeddah, the Arabs, the citi-
zens and tribes and their families and the safety of all properties’.61
Imam Saud entered Jeddah on 23 December. He did indeed maintain
 

all civil employees in their posts, but planned certain changes in cus-
toms and quarantine administration, which were to be mediated.62 He
also agreed in part that they would be left to rule their territory.
  Notables of The Hijaz gathered on 22 Jumada II 1344 (7 January  

1926) and pledged their allegiance (bay‘a) to the new King of The
Hijaz. They agreed the conditions of the pledge and its text, which was
then presented to the king for his review. After the Friday prayer peo-
ple gathered in a pre-designated place at the Grand Mosque in Makkah
to pledge their allegiance. Ibn Saud came to the ceremony and took his
place among them. A cannon salute followed the text of the pledge:
In the name of God the most gracious and the most merciful, praise be
to God, may peace and blessings be upon the Seal of the Prophets. We
pledge allegiance to you Sultan Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al-Faisal
Al-Saud so you may become king of The Hijaz in accordance with the
book of God and Sunna of the Prophet and the example of the compan-
ions and As-Salaf As-Salih,[63] and the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs, God
bless them all. The Hijaz is for the Hijazis and it is for its people to
manage Hijazi affairs. Makkah is the capital of The Hijaz and all The
Hijaz remains first under God’s protection and then under your
Majesty’s protection.64
  At the same time, in Medina, the nobles met in the Prophet’s
Mosque, saluted Prince Mohammed ibn Abdulaziz, and pledged alle-
giance to the new King of Hijaz. Bay‘a pledges followed in other parts
of The Hijaz.65
  Imam Ibn Saud, time and again, emphasized that his goal in coming
into The Hijaz was to purify the Ka’ba and to place the government in
the hands of people in co-operation with the Islamic world. British
archives note his letter of November 1926 to the King of Egypt, the
Emir of Afghanistan, and the Persian and Iraqi governments, as well as
to the Caliphate Committee of India, in which he again declared:

110
 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
I, in the name of God, do not intend to spread my rule over The Hijaz
nor to annex it; but The Hijaz is a trust in my hands until the time
comes when the people of The Hijaz can choose their ruler from among
themselves dependent on the Islamic world under the superintendence
of Muslim nations who demonstrate considerable zeal in that affair such
as the Indians and some others.66
  The two messages that came in Ibn Saud’s letters and declarations
were:
1. The Hijaz is for the Hijazis from a self-government standpoint and for
the entire Muslim world in respect of their rights in the country
[emphasis added].
2. Polling for the election of the governor of The Hijaz would be car-
ried out under the superintendence of the Muslim world at a time
that would be decided later.67

Imam Ibn Saud’s Correspondence with The Hijaz and the Islamic World
For the new king, rule over The Hijaz was not solely a matter of mili-
tary conquest, nor just a question of political control. In the period
1924–6 he drafted a series of correspondence with the Hijazi people,
diplomatic missions, the Islamic world, and the international commu-
nity in order to present himself as eager to free the territory from the
rule of ‘corrupted polytheistic doctrine’ and hand it over to the Hijazis.
His speeches and correspondence were published in the newspaper
Umm al-Qura, whose first issue was published on 12 December 1924.
 

Thus, at an early stage of his occupation of The Hijaz, Imam Ibn Saud
suggested that he would hand over The Hijaz to its people and allow
them to choose the form of government they wanted, with consent of
the Islamic umma.
  The first of these messages was addressed to Muslims all over the
world, and discussed Imam Ibn Saud’s negotiations with representatives
of the Indian Khilafat Movement, who stood by Imam Ibn Saud and
supported his position as ‘defender of the right’.68 He thanked all the
Indian Muslims for remembering their duties towards Islam while
Arabs were involved in fights and quarrels. He also promised to con-
vene a conference to consider the future of The Hijaz, which would
remain independent of non-Muslim influence. In the message, Imam

111
 THE HIJAZ
Ibn Saud attempts to demonstrate that he is not a conqueror, but a
liberator with widespread support from other Muslims, especially
those in India.
  The second is a speech directed to the people of Makkah, entitled
‘Proclamation of the Sultan Regarding General Amnesty’.69 In the mes-
sage, Saud offers amnesty to all those political leaders in the service of
Sharif Hussein. The third is a letter from Imam Ibn Saud to rulers of the
Islamic countries,70 in which he emphasizes his commitment to peace
in the Holy Lands and the right of the people of The Hijaz to self-gov-
ernance—which was thought to mean a Hijazi leader chosen under the
supervision of representatives of the Islamic world.
  The fourth document published in Umm al-Qura is a text addressed
to the people of The Hijaz, which aims to reassure them of Imam Ibn
Saud’s commitment to the stability, security, and prosperity of The
Hijaz.71 The fifth message is a general communiqué from Imam Ibn
Saud72 framing his invasion of The Hijaz in religious terms and making
promises of self-determination for the people. There is no dispute,
however, about the military nature of his venture. Notably, his invita-
tions to hold an Islamic world conference in Makkah were declined or
fiercely protested by many Muslims, who considered him a conqueror
and were concerned about the future of The Hijaz and the fate of the
Holiest Sites, as well as questions of security and access regarding the
pilgrimage.73 The sixth document was the first statement of Imam Ibn
Saud74—or King Abdulaziz, as he was now styled—published just after
the people of The Hijaz swore their allegiance to him. In this document
he takes the title of ‘King of The Hijaz and Sultan of Najd and its
Dependencies’ and assures the consolidation and prosperity of The
Hijaz and the security of all the pilgrims. The seventh document is
another official communiqué from King Abdulaziz, in which he
announces the establishment of consultative councils in Makkah,
Medina, Jeddah, Yanbu, and Taif, which will consider local issues of
public interest, along with ‘the General Consultative Council’.75 In
reality, King Abdulaziz sought, through the establishment of the coun-
cils, to legitimize and extend his authority, after which he would be
able to consolidate his power over the entire realm.
  The Islamic World Conference in Makkah did take place, and King
Abdulaziz’s opening address to it is the eighth document. In this he

112
 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
explains his conquest of The Hijaz, using the fact that the Najdis were
deprived of the duty to perform the Hajj, and the necessity of saving
the ‘Cradle of Islam’ from Sharifian rule.76 He also calls for widespread
reforms in The Hijaz with the guidance of the Islamic world, to which
he appeals for engagement in the affairs of The Hijaz. In fact, Imam Ibn
Saud’s conquest, as some of the delegates argued, was an obvious fait
accompli, and, rather than seeking advice on how to govern The Hijaz,
he simply sought affirmation, or rather a lack of dissent, from leaders
of Islamic nations.
  The final document is a statement from King Abdulaziz to the del-
egates of the conference and their subjects in their respective coun-
tries.77 He calls for a return to the ‘pure’ practices of Islam during its
first few centuries and opposes any non-Muslim intervention in Hijazi
affairs. The tone of this declaratory message appears to be more deci-
sive, as it sets out two doctrinal statecraft policies: (a) a ‘puritanical’
Salafist system of government in which the Wahhabi–Saudi alliance is
the only one capable of governing the country; and (b) that King
Abdulaziz would be the only judge able to determine the future of the
Holy Land.

The Kingdom of Hijaz and Najd

Imam Ibn Saud proclaimed himself King of The Hijaz and Sultan of
Najd and its Dependencies in 1926, and, a year later, the personal legal
union under him became known as the Kingdom of Hijaz and Najd.78
Arguments suggest that it was Imam Ibn Saud’s intention to assimilate
the Kingdom of Hijaz over time, initially preserving most of the
advanced administrative structures that were in place.79 Summer Scott
Huyette similarly argues that upon taking over The Hijaz, Imam Ibn
Saud aimed to maintain the status quo, and, that in assuming the title
of King of The Hijaz and Najd and its Dependencies, he indicated that
the two entities were separate, although at the same time not equal and
not a single administrative union.80
  In a speech after taking over Makkah in October 1924, Ibn Saud
spoke of the role of the Hijazi ‘ulama’, and said that the merchants
would be left in charge of their own affairs. The expression he used was
‘your homelands, your country’, which was a legal recognition of the

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 THE HIJAZ
rights of The Hijaz to territorial self-governance and self-determina-
tion, free of interference from neighbouring Najd.81 The Hijazis were
then asked to form a council that would be responsible for the internal
affairs of The Hijaz. Its members were to be elected from the ‘ulama’,
merchants, and prominent elites. Initially, thirteen members were
elected to form al-majlis al-ahli,82 but a year later King Abdulaziz
selected all its members.83 A few months later, in August 1926, the
king’s son Prince Faisal ibn Abdulaziz (later King Faisal of Saudi Arabia)
was appointed the Viceroy of The Hijaz and headed a twelve-member
Consultative Council (majlis al-shura). Churchill was known to have
approved of the role of Faisal, and wished to maintain dialogue with
him, yet was blinded by opinions being thrown at him by the newly
created Middle East Department.84 The local notables, including those
of The Hijaz National Party, were given limited representation, but
were placed in hierarchical order, under Saudi control.85
  Prince Faisal was to govern with the help of six local advisers chosen
annually by the king on the basis of their abilities and efficiency.86
Al-Ta‘limat al-Asasiyya, the so-called Foundational Instructions, was
announced a month later. The document was originally published in
Umm al-Qura, dated 25 Safar 1345;87 it declared Hijazi territorial integ-
rity and announced its status as a monarchical, consultative Islamic
state that was internally and externally independent.88
  There is no agreement among historians, scholars, or lawyers as to
whether these Foundational Instructions had sufficient determinancy
to be considered a constitution for The Hijaz. Another Arabic term,
al-dustur, is more conventionally used to refer to a constitution.
  The document was applied jurisdictionally in The Hijaz, and was the
official method of absorbing already existing institutions into Hijazi
governance.89 The official establishment of an elected consultative
council for The Hijaz, as well as a number of city and village councils,
followed.90 The system was reviewed in 1927, and a reformed system
set out rules for a consultative council composed of eight members as
well as a council of deputies, which was to advise the ruler on execu-
tive matters.91 By agreeing to such a document, King Abdulaziz con-
solidated his power in The Hijaz even further, and broke away from the
traditional form of tribal rule in Arabia by accommodating the existing
institutions in The Hijaz, even though they were purely advisory, with
a limited mandate and restricted influence.

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 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
  According to contemporary sources, The Hijaz was governed
according to separate institutions until as late as 1953, when the king-
dom-wide Council replaced that of The Hijaz. In terms of internal
governance, The Hijaz and Najd could no longer be considered as sepa-
rate parts of the kingdom.92 In addition, the Hijazi Nationality Law was
promulgated in October 1926 in The Hijaz only, superseding the Arab
Hashemite nationality that had replaced Ottoman citizenship after the
Arab Revolt in 1916. Najd did not have one until February 1931, sug-
gesting that King Abdulaziz was aware of the fundamental differences
between the cosmopolitan Hijaz and the tribal structure of Najd,
necessitating a two-state, one-crown solution. The law recognized The
Hijaz as a state, in the personal union of King Abdulaziz, separate from
Najd. The legislation states that ‘persons of Hijaz origin or residence,
who were Ottoman subjects before the Great War, are deemed
Hijazis’.93 The law also recites the conditions under which one could
adopt or lose Hijazi nationality.
  Internationally, the king needed to review not only the new circum-
stances surrounding the statehood of The Hijaz, but also his interna-
tional position. He thus began efforts to revisit the treaty with Great
Britain, as well as approaching the tricky issue of the League of Nations
in order to formalize his domain’s status in the international arena.
Leatherdale discusses extensively Ibn Saud’s interest in and willingness
to join the League of Nations.94 In the process, the legal status of The
Hijaz was discussed in depth, and so was the issue of whether the Saudi
Hijaz was a successor state of the Kingdom of Hijaz—which, as we
discussed earlier, was one of the signatories to the Covenant of the
League of Nations, and an original member, as listed in the Appendix
to the Covenant.95
  If that had been the case, ratifying of the Treaty of Versailles would
have been enough to make The Hijaz a full member of the League.
However, some legal advisers at the British Foreign Office argued that
since Imam Ibn Saud rejected all acts of the Hashemites, he had practi-
cally created a new state. Additionally, what complicated the matters
even further was the fact that he was the ruler of The Hijaz and Najd—
two distinct entities, with two different administration systems, joined
by what the British regarded as a personal union. That is, two separate
states under one king, much as the English and Scottish thrones had

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 THE HIJAZ
been under the rule of James I of England/VI of Scotland. On the
other hand, the Foreign Office also noticed that in some cases Ibn
Saud’s entity was a ‘real union’, especially when it came to the conduct
of foreign affairs. Specifically, there was only one foreign office and one
foreign minister, and none of the international treaties with Imam Ibn
Saud had been concluded twice. Under this dominant view, the king
could not ratify the Versailles Treaty, because The Hijaz no longer
existed as a state separate from Najd, and this argument was also used
against the king’s realm joining the League of Nations.96
  On another front, Imam Ibn Saud’s authority grew considerably. He
had first signed a treaty with Britain in 1915,97 and now he wanted to
negotiate a more favourable one. With the dissolution of the Ottoman
Empire, the annexation of The Hijaz, and the exile of the Hashemites,
he was arguably the most powerful independent ruler in the region. He
therefore wanted the West to acknowledge this fact. The British had
established a relationship with Imam Ibn Saud in 1915 when they had
signed the Darin Pact,98 which guaranteed the safety of British
Protectorates in the Gulf—namely Kuwait, Qatar, and the Trucial
States, in exchange for British Protectorate status for those lands under
Imam Ibn Saud’s control at the time. From the perspective of imperial
strategy, the Darin Pact was an alternative to the promises made to
Sharif Hussein in the McMahon–Hussein correspondence.99 The Darin
Pact was considered a part of the diplomatic calculations that accom-
panied the Sykes–Picot Agreement. The British felt it worthwhile to
keep Imam Ibn Saud for contingency-planning purposes, should mat-
ters go awry with the French.100 The Darin Pact had the effect of trans-
forming the Najd into a British Protectorate in a manner identical to
every other British Protectorate in the Gulf.101 It also brought the
Kingdom of Najd together with the Emirate of Hasa into the First
World War on the side of the British on 26 December 1915.102
 

Interestingly, the Najd and Hasa were brought into the war indepen-
dently from the Arab Revolt.

Challenges to Ibn Saud’s Rule over The Hijaz

Governing the Hijazi population turned out to be a challenging task,
especially during the global economic depression of the 1930s. British

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 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
correspondence from the early years of the decade articulates in detail
the internal situation in the country, and discusses Ibn Saud’s perfor-
mance as the ruler of The Hijaz and his challenged legitimacy among
the people. George William Rendell, the head of the Eastern
Department of the Foreign Office, wrote in the winter of 1931: ‘If I
were betting, I should back Ibn Saud to muddle through but if I were
an insurance company, I should charge a high premium for insuring his
regime in the Hejaz for two years.’103 ‘The Future of Arabia’ report also
suggested the possibility that Ibn Saud might lose The Hijaz, as ‘it was
acquired by the sword by the Wahhabis who have no roots in the coun-
try’,104 and who were imposing their religious laws on The Hijaz. The
government also failed to hold a consultative council for two years,
bringing dissatisfaction to the Hijazis, who had been promised a forum
to participate in the governing of their country.
  A report from Jeddah that reached the Foreign Office in January
1932 described the situation in the following terms:
The country seems to be gradually drifting towards the verge of ruin
and degradation. The main cause of these financial difficulties and
troubles is attributed to Ibn Saud’s policy of exploitation of Hejaz
money for the Nejd. The king has concentrated all his attention on the
collection and storage of gold at Riyadh. The policy of Ibn Saud has
greatly affected the Hejaz where people have been confronted with a
menacing economic crisis. The question of unemployment has become
so keen that the motor drivers … are practically starving in their hun-
dreds. The non-payment of salaries to government officials has given a
deathblow to the local trade. … In the busy centre of Makkah half of
the shops have been closed down. … The situation in The Hijaz is
gloomier than it has ever been in living memory.105
  Further to the detailed description of the adverse economic condi-
tions in The Hijaz, the report, crucially, makes reference to Ibn Saud’s
policy of of channelling wealth and resources from The Hijaz to Najd.
In addition, it highlights the negative impact of the new king’s policies
on the administrative and trading capacities of The Hijaz—historically
key for the region’s prosperity.
  Another report, by Sir Andrew Ryan, a British diplomat in The
Hijaz, produced in February of the same year, stated that Ibn Saud’s
political position was constantly deteriorating, and that there was a

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 THE HIJAZ
common feeling that his legacy would not last after his death. Although
his position in Najd seemed well established, in The Hijaz he had
made a complete mess of its administration … and the discontent with
his regime is widespread. … He isolates himself from the Arab world
by his individualism, his hostility to the Hashemites and his dislike of
any manifestations of Arab nationalism. … The Hijaz has to carry a
great part of the burden of Nejd and the government as such is unques-
tionably bankrupt.106

The Hijaz Liberation Movement

The reports show that within just a few years it had become clear that
Ibn Saud was not willing to keep his promises regarding popular par-
ticipation in the self-governance of The Hijaz, a commitment which he
had reiterated a number of times between 1924 and 1926. Also, the
worsening economic situation and religious disagreements with the
Wahhabi form of Islam had pushed a group of prominent Hijazi oppo-
sitionists, with help of the Hashemite Emir Abdullah of Transjordan, to
establish the Hizb al-Ahrar al-Hijazi (Party of the Free Hijazis), or The
Hijaz Liberation Party (HLP). Its aim was to end Wahhabi rule over the
territory and recreate the independent state of The Hijaz. The party
functioned in the period between 1928 and 1935, and its members
were active not only in The Hijaz, but also in Transjordan, Egypt,
Palestine, Yemen, Eritrea, India, Iraq, and the Asir region of Saudi
Arabia, south of The Hijaz.107
  Among the party’s leaders were civic leaders and notables, including
Tahir al-Dabbagh, Hussein al-Dabbagh, and Shaykh ‘Abd al-Rauf al-
Sabban.108 All these prominent individuals were dynamically involved
in The Hijaz National Party. The movement’s pre-eminent aim was to
demonstrate that the end of Hashemite rule over the territory had not
put a stop to the striving for self-determination.
  In early 1928 the HLP published and distributed a document titled
‘The Hijaz National Charter’, listing the specific goals of the organiza-
tion, which were, broadly speaking, the establishment of a liberal,
constitutional, democratic monarchy. The ultimate aim of the party
was an independent state, modelled on the 1916–25 Hashemite king-
dom. The Charter was printed in Makkah and included the stamp of

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 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
the Executive Committee of The Hijaz Liberation Party, which issued
the document. The Charter was written in the language of interna-
tional law, and called for self-determination and self-governance in The
Hijaz. The form of the government was to be decided by the National
Assembly and the individual rule of Ibn Saud was to end.
  Article 1 of the Charter was a rejection of the primary production
model of any colonial exploitation—in which the metropolitan powers
appropriated the raw materials supplied by the colony, along with its
secondary processing industries. Rather than allowing the country’s
natural resources to be exported, with little national gain, the party
wanted to develop the Hijazi economy for its own inhabitants.
  Article 3 caused confusion among British officials. One 1928
Whitehall document translated its reference to ‘popular, representative
and constitutional rule’ into ‘republican’. At first glance, this may
indeed sound republican. However, it does not rule out the possibility
of constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary body, as the British
ought to have realized from their own national arrangements. The
return of Hashemite rule under a constitutional directive was a possi-
bility, if not a probability, given Emir Abdullah and the National Party’s
shared goal of liberating The Hijaz.
  Article 6 appealed to the notion of ethnic nationalism and called for
the national unity of all Arab territories, as well as a common foreign,
defence, and cultural policy. There was an appeal for an Islamic
Congress, but it was secondary to a call for a national congress, which
indicates that national rather than Islamic rhetoric took precedence.
The group was not seeking to recreate the Caliphate. However, it
aimed to address the issue of the pilgrimage and to ensure that the
global interests of pilgrims were protected, but not in conflict with the
sovereignty of the country.
  Most importantly, the HLP appealed to the wider Islamic world for
support, rather than to the Western powers, which had stood idly by
while the Hijazi state was being extinguished. British records reveal
numerous letters from The Hijaz Liberation Party sent to Islamic ter-
ritories as far afield as India and Eritrea, containing the Charter and
calling on all the people of the Islamic world to help the party in its
efforts to liberate The Hijaz.109 The party’s leaders toured Islamic coun-
tries and met with prominent individuals in order to gain support for

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 THE HIJAZ
their cause and to establish branches outside The Hijaz. One of their
centres was Cairo, where a group of prominent Hijazis established the
Hijazi Defence Association, which was considered a branch of The
Hijaz Liberation Party in Egypt.110 The party raised finance from Emir
Abdullah, societies and individuals in India, and even the Khedive of
Egypt, Abbas Hilmi. Party members, or Free Hijazis as they were also
known, also paid monthly instalments to the party’s account.111 The
variety and range of the party’s financial backing indicates wide sup-
port in the Arab and Islamic worlds.
  The party planned a military campaign, beginning with an operation
in the north, supported by an uprising in Asir to the south, and com-
bined with a general strike inside The Hijaz.112 However, it appears that
the plan changed after Ibn Rifada’s campaign was announced. In the
summer of 1932 the Iraq Command Intelligence reported that ‘Hijazis
drawn from various tribes had crossed from Sinai into The Hijaz via
Aqaba with the announced intention of raising a revolt in the name of
the Sharifian family against the Government of Ibn Saud. This Party,
which consisted of the Hijazis who had emigrated into Egypt and
Lower Palestine since 1927, was under the leadership of Hamid Ibn
Rifada of the Billi tribe.’113 Although unsuccessful, and defeated only
two months later, Ibn Rifada’s uprising reflected Ibn Saud’s legitimacy
problems within The Hijaz and proved that the popular dissatisfaction
in the country could break out into a major revolt. As a result of the
uprising, the government confiscated the estates of many leading
Hijazis, including the great estates of Sharif ‘Ali, the dethroned king of
The Hijaz.114 The Hijaz Liberation Party played a major role in generat-
ing support for Ibn Rifada’s revolt, and its branch in Egypt is thought
to have assisted the revolt both financially and in facilitating contacts
between the tribes.
  Under these circumstances, and in order to stir up an anti-Saudi
revolt in The Hijaz and Najd, the party focused on co-operation with
Sayyid al-Hassan al-Idrisi, who had lost his traditional sphere of influ-
ence in Asir to Ibn Saud, and whose rule over the territory was by this
time only nominal.115 In 1930 a meeting between Hussein al-Dabbagh
and al-Hassan al-Idrisi was held in al-Luhayyah, at which they agreed
on common action against Ibn Saud. On that occasion, the Executive
Committee of the party issued a ‘Statement of the Hijazi and Idrisi

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 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
Revolutionary Authority’, which included an appeal to the ‘Hijazi
nation’ to resist the Wahhabis, who had violated the sanctity of the
Holy Places. The statement called for global Muslim support, but espe-
cially by Hijazi nationals, noting that the members of the movement
were united under the leadership of Hashemites and that the revolution
was both religious and national in character.116
  A number of primarily archival sources indicate that Ibn Saud was
aware of the activities of the Free Hijazis. The Agent of Foreign Affairs
in Ibn Saud’s government, Fuad Hamza, wrote a message to the British
expressing his dissatisfaction with them and demanding that they moni-
tor the activities of party members and sympathizers closely. He was
particularly concerned with the undertakings of Emir Shakir ibn
Zayid.117 Emir Shakir was related to Emir Abdullah and was a high-
ranking official in Transjordan, presiding over the Council of Tribes.118
In late 1932 Emir Shakir travelled from Amman to Jerusalem to meet
with Tahir al-Dabbagh, Abdullah ibn Umayr, and ‘Abd al-Rauf al-Sab-
ban, to discuss ways of supporting the revolt in Asir.119 This infuriated
Saudi officials to the extent that they deported his relatives from The
Hijaz to Transjordan and demanded his dismissal in Transjordan for ‘his
open hostility towards [a] friendly country’.120 The intended meeting
between the three and Emir Abdullah of Transjordan never occurred,
as he was under pressure from the British, who forbade him from
meeting the activists.121

British–Saudi Repression of The Hijaz Liberation Party

British correspondence details the movements and actions of ‘Abd al-
Rauf al-Sabban. Like al-Dabbagh, he was banned from entering
Palestine, Transjordan, and Egypt in the latter months of 1932. The
British disapproved of his participation in anti-Saudi conspiracy activi-
ties and attacking Ibn Saud in the pages of the Egyptian newspaper al-
Ummah.122 Like Emir Shakir, he was a government official in
Transjordan—in fact, the director of Emir Abdullah’s estates—
between 1922 and 1932.123
  A letter from the Foreign Office in London asked the British
Lieutenant-General in Baghdad to intensify his surveillance and appre-
hend him immediately if he tried to enter Iraq.124 Britain’s actions and

121
 THE HIJAZ
decisions show the extent to which Whitehall supported the interests
of the government of Ibn Saud. Anyone in service of Emir Abdullah
who was found to have any connections to the Free Hijazis was to be
dismissed, and ‘outside conspirators’ were to be ‘excluded from
Palestine, Transjordan and Egypt’, as only decisive measures would
‘disarm Ibn Saud’s suspicions’.125
  Thus, in response to Saudi pressures and dissatisfaction, Britain
guaranteed to combat any anti-Saudi activity that took place in territo-
ries under its control or influence. As a neighbouring territory with
strong links to the formerly independent Kingdom of The Hijaz, the
Emirate of Transjordan suffered the strongest accusations from the
government of Ibn Saud, which suspected that Emir Abdullah was
behind the movement of Ibn Rifada and al-Idrisi.126 In order to show
their control of the situation, and to stop the weapons and supplies
from being smuggled into The Hijaz, the British closed the borders
between Transjordan and Ibn Saud’s Hijaz territories during Ibn
Rifada’s revolt. A British warship was also despatched to Aqaba to
blockade movement (of supplies and reinforcements) by sea.127 Britain
justified these actions as permissible involvement in its capacity as the
Mandatory power in Transjordan. Any hostile activity against British
allies taking place in territory under British control could be inter-
preted by Ibn Saud as support or leniency towards the members of The
Hijaz Liberation Party, and, consequently, Britain’s close relationship
with Saudi Arabia was at stake.128
  By 1933 British officials wanted to apply a policy of ‘rapproche-
ment’ between Saudi Arabia and Transjordan as ‘the best way of dispos-
ing of intrigues’.129 But in effect, ‘rapprochement’ meant repressing
any anti-Saudi activity and ensuring the continuance of Britain’s colo-
nial influence in Egypt, Transjordan, Palestine, and Iraq. A report of
March 1933 addressed to Fuad Hamza sums up the actions that the
British undertook in response to the activities of the Free Hijazis:
Immediate action was taken to prevent a number of persons, mostly of
Hijazi origin engaged in a conspiracy against the present regime in the
country, from using Aden as their base. When it was discovered that the
persons concerned were active elsewhere, further measures were taken
to counteract their efforts. These measures culminated in the decision
taken in the latter part of last year to exclude from Transjordan and

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 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
Palestine those who were regarded as especially dangerous. In addition,
the Egyptian government ordered their deportation from their terri-
tory and they have warned other residents of the importance of refrain-
ing from undesirable activities.130
  In his reply, Fuad Hamza assured the British of his country’s appre-
ciation of the support it was receiving. He stated that ‘His Majesty [Ibn
Saud], despite changes of circumstances and condition and difference
of outward appearance and form has never for a day doubted the
friendship of the British Government’. He went on to say that Sir
Andrew Ryan’s statements ‘are a fresh proof of the existence of this
mutual desire for cooperation and collaboration between the two
Governments’.131 This correspondence indicates close cooperation
between the Saudi and British governments on the issue of the Free
Hijazis, and a combined effort to ensure the consolidation of Ibn Saud’s
rule over The Hijaz. After Ibn Saud took over The Hijaz, they were the
last opposition holdout that Ibn Saud—with the help of the British—
had to overcome. Once he had done so, he was able to consolidate his
rule over The Hijaz.

Unification: Arabian Kingdom vs.The Hijaz

It is not clear when Ibn Saud decided to unify The Hijaz and Najd, and
whether his motive was to try to solve the economic and political
problems that were, according to British observers, causing widespread
discontent among the population. There is no clear indication in the
archival documents as to what his political calculations were, although
there is some conflicting information to consider. As late as February
1932 the British consulate in Jeddah reported that Ibn Saud was aware
of the possibility of civil war in The Hijaz in the event of his death.
Therefore, ‘with a view of avoiding this crisis, he is going to separate
The Hijaz from Nejd and take steps to obtain a baya’a from the Hijazi
people in favour of Prince Faisal and a similar undertaking from the
Najdi population in favour of his son Prince Saud’.132 That move was
also aimed at ensuring that ‘Hijazi money is spent in The Hijaz’.133 No
move, however, was taken to implement this policy, and seven months
later the British reported that the king ‘made a secret arrangement to
the effect that all sects of Hijazi nationals send telegrams to him praying

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 THE HIJAZ
to change the style of his government from Najd/Hijaz to the Kingdom
of Arabiah el Saudiah’.134 Further research must be encouraged with
regard to this issue, as it is possible that the British Consul in Jeddah
was ill informed in February 1932; or that Ibn Saud truly did not have
a clear policy with regard to his dependencies and was considering
multiple options. Also, it is plausible that the fear of further HLP activi-
ties pushed Ibn Saud to centralize his power further, and declare a
one-state solution for the territories that he ruled.
  On 22 September 1932 the British Chargé d’Affaires in Jeddah com-
 

municated that a Royal Decree had been signed in Riyadh on

18 September and that Ibn Saud had decided as follows:
 

1) The name of Kingdom of Hejaz Nejd shall be changed to the

Kingdom of Saudian Arabia and our title will be King of Saudian
Arabia.
2) Change to take effect from day of announcement.
3) It will not affect existing treaties, agreements, obligations or
contracts.
4) All existing regulations and provisions remain in force.
5) Existing government organization to continue until new organiza-
tion is built on basis of this unification.
6) Council of Ministers to prepare forthwith and submit to us a con-
stitution for king’s rule, succession to throne and organization of
government.
7) Council may co-opt suitable members for this purpose.
8) 22 September, first day of equinox, chosen as date of announce-
 

ment of unification.135
  The Royal Decree was promulgated in the first page of the Makkan
newspaper Umm al-Qura on 23 September. What preceded this publica-
 

tion was, however, a series of propaganda-like publications of a number

of telegraphed petitions to Ibn Saud from Najdi and Hijazi sources
asking him to proclaim the unity of the ‘Saudian Kingdom’ and estab-
lishing the succession to the throne, as ‘recent events so clearly dem-
onstrated intrinsic solidarity of the two’.136 Ibn Saud thus sought to
legitimize his move and make the unification decree appear to be with
accordance to the wishes of the public.
  The British Chargé d’Affaires in Jeddah in his telegram to the
Foreign Office in London interpreted Ibn Saud’s move towards unifica-

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 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
tion as having dynastic, financial, and imperial objectives. The King
wanted to consolidate Saudi rule in The Hijaz, cloak the use of Hijazi
revenues, and complete the assimilation of Asir into his realm.137 In the
telegram of 26 September, the Foreign Office stated that personal con-
 

gratulations to the king were sufficient, as no formal recognition was

needed since it was a ‘mere change of the name’.138 This implies that
Britain had accepted that Najd and Hijaz were not in a mere personal
union, but were already united into a single state, even before the
change of name.
  Ibn Saud’s move can also be seen as a reaction to the ever-worsening
situation in The Hijaz and fears of his dynasty losing the territory in the
future. Ibn Rifada’s rebellion had only given an indication of what prob-
lems Ibn Saud might face in the future had the policy in The Hijaz been
maintained. Unification also meant that there would be one central
government, so he could no longer be accused of investing Hijazi
money in the Najd.
  As far as the stance of Ibn Saud’s entity in the international arena is
concerned, with the transformation of The Hijaz–Najd into Saudi
Arabia in 1932, the discussions regarding the legal status of the terri-
tory ended, as it had become clear that the Najd and Hijaz state(s) had
ceased to exist as two separate entities and had been replaced with one
unified state, to whose existence no one could have raised any legalistic
objections.139

The Status of The Hijaz as a Sovereign State and as a Signatory to the

Covenant of the League of Nations
The exact position and status of The Hijaz in the post-First World War
order has been the subject of much confusion. Answering the question
as to whether The Hijaz was considered a state, and whether it was
considered a member of the League of Nations, gives rise to the
question(s) as to the obligations of the international community in
response to the subsequent annexation of The Hijaz by Ibn Saud.
  In relation to its status as a state, the British position as of November
1920 seems to have been that The Hijaz ‘has been recognized as a
Sovereign State’.140 The status of The Hijaz was also the subject of a
lengthy debate in the American Senate. There, The Hijaz’s status was

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 THE HIJAZ
discussed particularly in relation to the commitment that the United
States would face in protecting its territorial integrity.141
  As far as The Hijaz’s membership in the League of Nations was con-
cerned, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George stated in
Parliament that ‘the Hedjaz, not having ratified the treaty of Versailles,
is not yet a member of the League of Nations and cannot be repre-
sented at the Assembly until she has ratified’.142 The prime minister’s
view was far from incontrovertible; and an contrary view was
expressed by Earl Winterton, who critically underscored:
Is it a fact that the Allied nations such as Hedjaz are refused admittance
to the League of Nations unless they ratify the Peace of Versailles, and
was it not agreed at the time of the Peace Conference that every Allied
nation would be admitted into the League, whether they ratified the
Treaty or not?143
  Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was seemingly under the impression
that the Kingdom of Hijaz had been admitted as a member of the
League of Nations, which was a cause of some reticence in the
American decision not to join the League of Nations as a member. As
Jeremy Rabkin observes:
Senator Lodge protested that, by joining the League, the United States
would give the King of Hedjaz the right ‘to demand the sending of
American troops to Arabia in order to preserve his independence
against the assaults of the Wahhabis’ even though ‘most people have not
the slightest idea where or what a Kingdom of Hedjaz is’.144
  Lodge astutely pointed out the collective security obligations that
flowed from League membership while indicating that the Saudi annex-
ation would commit League members to provide assistance to fellow
members. Despite the fact that a jus contra bellum did not begin to ossify
until the Kellogg–Briand Pact in 1928, Lodge’s comments capture and
reflect a fairly conventional understanding of the League’s collective
security obligations. While a number of sources regard The Hijaz as one
of three allied powers never to have joined the League of Nations (the
other two being the United States and Ecuador), the discussion has
remained subject to debate. What follows is a discussion of the main
theories of statehood, the doctrine of non-recognition under interna-
tional law, and the collective security provisions of the Covenant of the

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 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
League of Nations. These elements have been included with a view to
understanding how The Hijaz was caught in shifting tectonic plates of
international legal doctrines which had yet to be crystallized.

— The Constitutive and Declaratory Theories of Statehood

The constitutive theory of statehood effectively affirmed that states did
not come into existence until other states recognized them (especially
the Great Powers of the day). Kalevi Jaakko Holsti observed that while
Great Powers were accepted as sovereigns owing to their long-standing
existence, new states, even if de facto sovereign, had to be diplomati-
cally recognized before they could enjoy the rights associated with
sovereignty.145 Recognition was the path through which states could
come to existence under international law. The theory was problem-
atic, not least due to the implication that ‘sovereign’ states had effec-
tively no legal constraints when engaging an ‘unrecognized’ (and hence
‘not yet sovereign’) entity (aspiring state).146 Also, there were issues
when only some of the Great Powers chose to recognize an aspiring
state. Efforts to rectify this were also proven insufficient, as we will
discuss in Chapter 6.
  The constitutive approach to statehood under international law was
later superseded by the declaratory theory, which gained prominence
in 1924, with the decision in the Tinoco Claims Arbitration.147
Ironically, the decision was the result of ‘forum shopping’ on the part
of the British government, which would have certainly lost the case in
a British courtroom. The declaratory theory suggests that the question
of statehood is a question of fact; subsequent recognition is merely
‘declaratory’ of this fact, and it does not revoke or confer statehood in
and of itself. This would later be codified in the Montevideo Convention
on the Rights and Duties of States in 1933.148
  In short, for supporters of the declaratory theory, the creation of a
state is considered a matter of fact, with states coming into existence
when the minimum criteria—defined territory, permanent popula-
tion, government, and capacity to enter into relations with other
states—are met. For constitutive theorists, a state only comes into
being when it is recognized as sovereign by other states.

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 THE HIJAZ
Non-Recognition and its Application to The Hijaz
After the conquest of The Hijaz by Imam Ibn Saud, the question arose
as to whether the British could transfer their recognition from the state
of The Hijaz to the new entity. Here London seem to have applied the
the rules established by the Tinoco Claims Arbitration of 1923 to the
dual Kingdom of Hijaz and Najd, and this represented a clean break
with the constitutive theory that had dominated international law up
to that point.149
  In 1917 Tinoco Granados grabbed power in Costa Rica, until forced
to resign in 1919. His successor, Bautista Quiros, rapidly moved to
undo a series of laws passed by his predecessor’s regime. The British
government objected to this decision as it rendered null a deal between
the Aguilar Amory Corporation (then owned by Tinoco’s government)
and the Royal Bank of Canada (in which Britain had an interest).
Quiros’s government argued that, as Britain had not recognized Tinoco,
it was estopped from relying on that non-recognition to the detriment
of Costa Rica. The Tinoco judgment did not simply mean that the
debate was over. It merely marked the arrival of the declaratory theory.
The arbitrator of the case, Taft CJ, issued the following judgment and,
in so doing, elucidates what James Crawford has described as the locus
classicus of the declaratory theory of statehood:
The non-recognition by other nations of a government claiming to be
a national personality is usually appropriate evidence that it has not
attained the independence and control entitling it by international law
to be classed as such. But when recognition of a government is by such
nations determined by enquiry, not into its de facto sovereignty and
complete governmental control, but into its illegitimacy or irregular-
ity of origin, their non-recognition loses something of evidential
weight on the issue with which those applying the rules of interna-
tional law are alone concerned. … Such non-recognition for any rea-
son … cannot outweigh the evidence disclosed … as to the de facto
character of Tinoco’s government, according to the standard set by
international law.150
  Hypothetically, had the case been referred to a British court to apply
the principles of international law, the British would have lost, as the
recognition of a foreign head of state is a prerogative power, and the
Costa Rican estoppel claim would have carried weight.

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 HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION
  The British negotiated the Treaty of Jeddah in 1927 with Imam Ibn
Saud. The treaty recognized ‘the complete and absolute independence
of the dominions of the King of Hijaz and of Najd [Ibn Saud] and its
dependencies’.151 In return, the British secured protection for their
Protectorates—namely, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman.
  Sharif Hussein once again found himself the victim of changing
British interests. The Tinoco Claims Arbitration would not permit the
British to withhold the recognition of Imam Ibn Saud as the sovereign
simply due to the irregularity or illegitimacy of his accession.152 The
Hijaz, it follows, was simply the victim of a changing international
order.
  It is worth contrasting the Tinoco Claims argument with the estab-
lished norms of international law in this era. It was accepted that there
was a duty of non-recognition for states that had constituted them-
selves illegally. This was related to the principle ex injuria jus non oritur,
that is to say, acts contrary to international law cannot become a source
of legal rights for a wrongdoer.153 The legal obligation of non-recogni-
tion is to prevent a ‘fruit from the poisonous tree’ situation.154 As David
Raic observes: ‘The fundamental norm upon which the illegality is
based might be seriously undermined as a result of the validation of the
consequences of the illegal conduct through recognition. This in turn
may—if the legal rule involved is substantial—threaten the interna-
tional legal order as a whole.’155
  Unfortunately for The Hijaz, it took another year before the
Kellogg–Briand Pact (1928) and the Stimson Doctrine came into
effect, which would have rendered the Saudi annexation illegal.
  For instance, when the Japanese invaded Chinese Manchuria in 1931
and recast it as the new state of Manchukuo, the US Secretary of State,
Henry Stimson, issued the following statement: ‘[The United States]
cannot admit the legality of any situation de facto … and that it does
not intend to recognise any situation, treaty or agreement which may
be brought about by means contrary to the covenants and obligations
of the Treaty of Paris of 27 August, 1928.’156
 

  This declaration would formally become known as the Stimson

Doctrine. The League of Nations required that its members refuse to
recognize Manchukuo, which it deemed to be a product of illegal
Japanese aggression against Chinese sovereignty.157

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 THE HIJAZ
  The collective security requirements to which all member states of
the League were bound are clearly articulated in the League’s
Covenant. Article 10, for instance, states:
The Members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as
against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing politi-
cal independence of all Members of the League. In case of any such
aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression the
Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be
fulfilled.158
  Moreover, League members were required, when faced with any
dispute ‘likely to lead to rupture’, to submit the matter ‘either to arbi-
tration or judicial settlement or to enquiry by the council’.159
  Furthermore, crucially, Article 11 further stated: ‘Any war or threat
of war, whether immediately affecting any of the Members of the
League or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole
League, and the League shall take any action that may be deemed wise
and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations.’160
  As we have shown, there is a series of legal arguments to be made
on the question of The Hijaz’s status within the rapidly changing inter-
national legal context of the time. The field is definitely complicated,
and the legal and political landscape dynamic and fluid. What is clear,
however, is that the actions against The Hijaz and the Taif Massacre were
matters that should have been addressed by international jurists and
lawyers since, just as they should have at the highest level in the League
of Nations and the leading international fora of the time—not least
because they were an act of expansionary foreign aggression against a
League of Nations signatory, but also because they involved warfare,
the changing of borders through force, and directly affected the inter-
ests, as well as the commitments and obligations, of the Great Powers.
The Hijaz played its part effectively on the side of the Allies in the First
World War, undermining a powerful ally of Germany, the Ottomans,
in a region of considerable importance. When in the 1920s this former
ally was in a time of need, not only did it not find assistance from the
Great Powers, but it found itself, once again, caught up in imperial
calculations that led to its undermining and facilitated its eventual
assimilation by Ibn Saud. This action would have a lasting effect upon
the Islamic world that persists until this day.

130
 5

ISLAMIC SELF-DETERMINATION
AND THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL SYSTEM

This chapter will discuss the Islamic dimension of Hijazi self-determi-

nation, territorially, as the Islamic sacred state. Here we consider the
religious driver of Muslim self-determination, in contradistinction to
the ethnic driver that was the norm in the First World War period.
  As discussed earlier, the right to self-determination emerged, inter
alia, as a tool to prise colonies from the grip of their owners. Beyond
the intrigues and plots of Sykes–Picot, the right to self-determination
has itself worked to divide the polity of the umma. In other words,
instead of being united under one polity representing the Islamic com-
munity, like the Ottoman Empire, or being governed under a single
system of rules, as in the Caliphate, nationalistic claims for indepen-
dent nation-states were seen to have been instigated by colonial powers
only to weaken and break down the umma—another form of imperial
divide and rule.
  It should be noted that the concept of self-determination, from an
Islamic perspective, is primarily concerned with solidarity of the col-
lectivity. The Caliphate was required to preserve the unity of a singular
Muslim polity. The concept of solidarity, however, goes beyond this, as
we have discussed already, and has its roots in core religious texts.
Muslims who adopt and defend the notion of unity and the umma relied
on scriptural justifications such as ‘And hold fast, all together, unto the

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 THE HIJAZ
bond with God, and do not draw apart from one another.’1 The reli-
gious point of view emphasized a trans-ethnic and linguistic world
existence and a collective life under the Caliphate.
  The 1920s represented a turning point vis-á-vis the concept of
Muslim collectivity, namely, the perception of that long-standing
Islamic institution representing the collective: the Caliphate. While the
new international legal system was being established by the Great
Powers, and nationalist projects were being promoted in the old
Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, there were proponents of
the Caliphate and evolutionary projects stemming from it by way of
Islamic union and pan-Islamic movements. For instance, with regard to
rulers, there were the Hashemites, the Egyptian monarchy, and Imam
Ibn Saud. With regard to the ‘ulama’ and religious institutions, there
was the Grand Mosque and al-Azhar in Cairo, Qom and Najaf in Iran
and Iraq, and others who sought to convene Islamic diplomatic confer-
ences. With reference to social movements, there were the Muslim
Brotherhood and its offshoots. These actors and institutions were all
aimed at finding (or inventing) a solution to the issue of Islamic self-
determination after the abolition of the Caliphate. Who rules and how?
And what happens to the idea of an Islamic state, and, in particular, The
Hijaz?
  From the point of view of international relations, the point that
should be underlined is how to situate an evolved Islamic collectivity
given the nature of interaction between states in the new international
system. What level of homogeneity or heterogeneity in the construc-
tion of a ‘state’ is required to interact in such system? How does a
nation operate in the Arab world where citizens share religion, lan-
guage, culture, and history? As Ali Karaosmanoglu points out:
Islam stands as a symbol of legitimacy. It embodies the system of val-
ues upon which the legitimacy of the political regimes rests. In this
context Islam, as transnational cultural ensemble, links domestic
legitimacy with international politics, blurring the fundamental dis-
tinctions between the temporal and the spiritual, the domestic and the
international.2
  Therefore, in attempting to compensate for the abolition of the
Caliphate in 1924, one can argue that what we have seen was, and still
is, in a way, part of a continuing effort towards Islamic self-determina-

132
 ISLAMIC SELF-DETERMINATION
tion. These efforts may vary in several ways, but they are, collectively,
an important underpinning when it comes to understanding the
dimensions and expectations of Islamic movements on domestic and
international political levels. At the same time, arguably, we have also
seen the pursuit of the idea of Muslim solidarity, on its own terms,
determined independently, and not imposed or shaped by Great Power
politics, imperial calculations, and opportune attempts to fill the vac-
uum left by the abolition of the Caliphate. It is a goal which, in spite of
its powerful appeal and symbolism, has often seemed very close, only
to prove out of reach in the absence of true change by the key actors
and within the states involved.
  The Hijaz in particular, has always been seen as the religious, sym-
bolic, and geopolitical nucleus of the Islamic world. One can therefore
easily understand why many Muslim rulers and empires competed for
control over it. The following sections will explore Islamic reaction to
the annexation of The Hijaz, as well as the Islamic world’s efforts to
determine its future and that of the derelict Caliphate.

The Fall of the Caliphate and the Triumph of Wahhabism

While the tragedy of The Hijaz was being played out in the Arabian
Peninsula, a current of events in the Bosporus was shaping the political
future of the Islamic world. Turkish nationalists were taking steps
towards ridding themselves of the baggage of the past. This move was
instigated by a legitimacy crisis brought about by the Western powers’
invitation in October 1922 for both the sultan/caliph from the Istanbul
government and the nationalist head of government from Ankara to
attend the Lausanne Conference.3
  This confusion over who was Turkey’s legal representative pushed
the nationalists to resolve upon the abolition of the office of sultan,
thereby establishing themselves as the only sovereign representative.
On 1 November 1922 the Turkish Grand National Assembly voted to
 

separate the Caliphate from the Sultanate. It then abolished the latter,
and removed all temporal powers from the Ottomans.4 The Caliphate
was then symbolically vested in the House of Osman. It was not until
two years later, when Atatürk abolished it completely, that the last
Islamic polity disappeared. This represented a victory for the Father of

133
 THE HIJAZ
the Turks, who was hostile to the sultan for his signing the Treaty of
Sèvres in 1922. He spent January to March 1923 campaigning against
the ‘retrograde institution’ of the Caliphate, over the protests of some
among his general staff, who wished to retain Turkey’s centrality in the
Islamic world.5
  In The Hijaz, Sharif Hussein was carefully monitoring the situation
in Istanbul. Although he criticized the actions taken against the caliph’s
authorities, according to some observers he had already established
contact with the Turkish nationalists regarding the transfer of the
Caliphate to its rightful place.6 Hussein and the nationalists were aim-
ing to exchange interests based on comparative advantage and their
shared enmity towards the British. As Teitelbaum observes, ‘this is a
story of a coalescing of interests of two former enemies, as they faced
a common adversary, the British’.7 But there were also several internal
factors that moved Hashemites and Kemalists to seek common cause.
  Al-Katib argued that such actions contradicted the main conditions
of faith as put forward by Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, which forbade loyalty to
‘infidels’—those who did not subscribe to their puritan formulation of
faith, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.8 Such relations between Imam
Ibn Saud and other non-Muslims led to tension, uprising, and conflict
between the Imam and his Ikhwan warriors.9
  From 1916, the third Saudi Islamic state pragmatically mobilized its
Ikhwan to play an essential role in extending its power throughout
Arabia, and in capturing The Hijaz and other territories under the guise
of jihad. This was done using a discourse stressing the concept of takfir
(the excommunication of other Muslims). As we will explain later in
greater detail, Imam Ibn Saud masterfully utilized this concept to
expand his authority. However, some observers assert that although the
first Saudi Islamic state had been established through an internal trans-
tribal Islamic alliance and through the doctrinal incubation of Ibn ‘Abd
al-Wahhab, the third Saudi Islamic state relied more on external powers
such as Britain (and, later on, the United States). It did so for two
reasons: firstly, for financial and military backing; and secondly, to
establish international legitimacy and recognition.
  With The Hijaz as its foundation, the third Saudi state was aware of the
dangers inherent in the Wahhabi doctrine and some of its most fanatical
exponents—especially certain groups within the Ikhwan. Therefore, in
order to protect his new realm and shore up the support of his new

134
 ISLAMIC SELF-DETERMINATION
foreign partners, Ibn Saud, with decisive British airpower support and
assistance, destroyed the rebellious Ikhwan—mostly Mutayr and
Utayba—in the infamous Sabala campaign.10 Imam Ibn Saud then
cemented his legitimacy with the Islamic state, and buttressed it with
international support beyond his ancestral alliance with Wahhabism.
  With Ibn Saud’s seizure of The Hijaz a fait accompli, Britain soon
enough acknowledged his authority, and by 1922 Britain decided to raise
his subsidy to £100,000 a year. This decision was advanced by the then
Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill, despite the fact that he had
strongly denounced the Wahhabi takeover in the House of Commons in
July 1921, by describing them as ‘austere, intolerant, well-armed and
bloodthirsty’. Churchill later wrote that ‘my admiration for him [Ibn
Saud] was deep, because of his unfailing loyalty to us’, and the British
government set about strengthening its ties with the Wahhabi regime,
perhaps planting the seeds of a disaster that are still flourishing today.11

Bartering the Caliphate:The Kemalists and Sharif Hussein

There were contacts between Kemal’s nationalists and Sharif Hussein
dating back to 1919, and interests were established between them
based on aspiration and regional cooperation—particularly in Syria. In
this respect, Teitelbaum states:
Both Husein and his son Faisal had contact with Kemal’s nationalists.
Faisal’s contacts came out of his desire for an ally against the French;
Husein, who was at odds with Faisal after the war, was interested in
securing the Caliphate. Father and son were not on good terms, and
often operated at cross purposes.12
  Among the evidence that suggests the existence of contact was the
claim that Sharif Hussein’s son, Emir Abdullah, sent a message suggest-
ing that ‘he was in contact with the Kemalists, and that contacts were
under way for the Caliphate to be offered to Husein in exchange for
declaring open hostilities against the Allies’.13 Although there were
other incidents reported in 1922 that suggest continuing contacts, it is
‘unlikely that any real agreement was reached between Kemal and
Husein. The British Agent assessed that communications had passed
between the two, as Husein considered himself aggrieved by the
British, and may have wanted to keep his options open.’14

135
 THE HIJAZ
  Furthermore, Sharif Hussein hosted the ex-caliph Sultan
Muhammed VI in The Hijaz after he was deposed by the Turkish
National Assembly. Indeed, such action on the part of Sharif Hussein
was inconsistent with his rebellion against the Ottomans, but not
uncommon in relations between Ottoman and Arab nobility. However,
this could be interpreted in two ways. The first is that the ex-caliph’s
representatives did indeed recognize The Hijaz as an independent state
under the Treaty of Sèvres. The second interpretation is, according to
some, that Sharif Hussein received the ex-caliph with great hospitality
in The Hijaz, angling at the possibility of acquiring the Caliphate on a
voluntary basis—thereby, in a way, ‘returning’ it to the Arab
Hashemites after it had been taken by Sultan Selim in 1517.15 It is quite
clear that Sharif Hussein failed to convince the ex-caliph to hand the
office over to him, resulting in the latter’s departure from The Hijaz.
  Furthermore, in early February 1923, during the Lausanne
Conference, an important secret meeting was held,16 at which Nadji
al-Asil, Sharif Hussein’s representative, said he was authorized to pro-
pose that if Turkey were prepared to recognize Hussein ‘as king of all
the Arabian Peninsula’, he would, in turn, ‘undertake to use all his
influence in Arabia to befriend Turkey against England, and would in
fact be quite prepared to enter into an offensive and defensive alliance
with her’.17 This suggestion was later discussed with General Ismat
Bacha, who replied that ‘Turkey would recognize the independence of
“Arabia”, but could only recognize Hussein as king of such an entity if
the Arabs themselves did so’.18
  Almost all of these communications were reported by British agents,
who concluded that there were no clear indications that the Kemalists
had offered Hussein the Caliphate. At best, they may have offered to
recognize him as king of Arabia. Later on, Hussein visited Syria,
Palestine, and Jordan in order to show that his popularity was not lim-
ited to Hijaz, nor was his status limited to that of a ‘king’; rather, he was
to be presented as the caliph.19 However, Imam Ibn Saud’s threatening
posture towards The Hijaz had undermined all of Sharif Hussein’s plans.
  It was hardly a surprise to Sharif Hussein when the Caliphate was
abolished in 1924 by Atatürk,20 who had become the president of the
Turkish Republic a year earlier. Hussein took the opportunity to culti-
vate debates about restoring an Arab Caliphate with a Qurayshi descen-

136
 ISLAMIC SELF-DETERMINATION
dant at its helm—and he, of course, was the only qualified person for
the office. At the same time he believed that, by being named caliph, he
could save The Hijaz and strengthen his Islamic legitimacy against Imam
Ibn Saud. Accordingly, the Caliphate was the last attempt by the Sharif
to secure some semblance of self-determination. This difficult struggle
had started, for him, with leading the Arab Revolt, as the symbolic
leader of the Arab people. Indeed, his son, Emir Faisal, declined the
title ‘King of The Hijaz’ given to his father at the League of Nations,
arguing for the indeterminate title of ‘King of Arabia’.
  Atatürk’s motivation for the transfer of the Caliphate directly (or
indirectly) to the Hashemites was ultimately defined by Turkish domes-
tic crises. He had no doubts as to the centrality of his nationalist proj-
ect, and the Caliphate was simply a distraction. However, in the
absence of a formal transfer, the self-proclamation of the Caliphate by
Hussein in 1924 was not taken seriously. Instead of strengthening him,
it left him even more exposed to his existing enemies, and vulnerable
to new ones. Many believed that the Ottoman crisis was transient, and
that they would take up the office of the caliph again. And Sharif
Hussein’s proclamation did not receive the approval of Muslims, either
by way of a bay‘a, or diplomatically. All that was achieved was to under-
mine the potential of sustaining or re-establishing a real Caliphate, and,
ultimately, to seal the Wahhabi conquest of the Holy Lands.

The Fall of the Caliphate and the Islamic Diplomatic Conferences

(1924–1932)
With the prospect of the Ottoman Caliphate’s extinction, the Muslim
community attempted to organize conferences to determine the future
of the title and status of the Holy Lands. Moreover, the expansion of
Western European states into the Islamic lands freed by the dissolution
of the Ottoman Empire was a matter of shared concern.21
  The idea of an Islamic congress dated a few decades back, and was
actively discussed by a number of Muslim revivalists and reformers.
Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905) and his disciple Rashid Rida (1865–
1935) considered an Islamic conference to be one of the elements
needed for religious reformation. They propagated the idea from
Cairo, in al-Manar, a journal which dealt with political and religious
affairs. Also, ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi (1855–1902), in his seminal

137
 THE HIJAZ
work Umm al-Qura, argued for the replacement of the Ottoman
Caliphate with an Arab–Quraysh model, and called for a great Islamic
congress to be held in Makkah during the Hajj pilgrimage season.
Crucially, the works of all three excluded the possibility of continued
Ottoman claims to the title of caliph.22
  As described in the previous section, with the independence of The
Hijaz and the Turkish abolition of the Caliphate, Sharif Hussein was in
a position to assert his claim to the title in his capacity as custodian of
the two Holiest Sites of Islam. In July 1924 the Pilgrimage Congress
was convened in Makkah, during which Hussein campaigned among
prominent pilgrims from the Muslim world. The congress was to
assemble annually, and was committed to promoting Arabic as the offi-
cial language of the body; it also emphasized Arab unity as the basis of
Muslim unity.23 With the advent of Wahhabi aggression against The
Hijaz, however, the congress was never convened again.
  In May 1926 the General Islamic Congress for the Caliphate took
place in Cairo, organized by the jurists and ‘ulama’ at al-Azhar. Initially,
the conference intended to host representatives from all Islamic terri-
tories and appoint a new caliph. King Fouad I of Egypt was said to be
preparing the ground to take up the title, which worked to the organiz-
ers’ disadvantage, as the Muslim community felt that the results of the
congress were predetermined.24 Nevertheless, the organizers, among
them Rashid Rida, sought to make the Congress an inclusive event, and
invitations were sent to Wahhabi, Zaydi, and Twelver Shi’a representa-
tives.25 The question of the future of the Muslim Holy Lands, The Hijaz,
was thus to be decided by the whole umma.
  The debate surrounding the fate of the Caliphate at Cairo can be
divided into four strands:
1) The Arabist view: this emphasized an Arab Caliphate in lieu of a
Turkish one.
2) The Unionist view: this view suggested that, in the interests of
unity, the Caliphate should remain with the Ottomans. Prominent
supporters of this view included al-Afghani, ‘Abduh, Shakib Arslan,
and Mohammad Akif.
3) The Nationalist view: this was propounded and supported mainly
by Christian Arabs, who advocated Arab independence over ‘the
supremacy of Islamic affiliations’.

138
 ISLAMIC SELF-DETERMINATION
4)  The Confederate view: this view advocated decentralization from
Istanbul in a confederation of Arab states within the Caliphate. The
lead proponent of this position was the Ottoman Administrative
Decentralization Party, which was established in Cairo.26
  There were a number of significant developments in the lead-up to
the Conference. The first was the position of Turkish nationalists, who
argued that inclusivity towards non-Turkish lands in the Ottoman
Empire would make Turkish blood ‘impure’. Atatürk took a compara-
tively moderate view. He argued in favour of the history and essence of
the Caliphate, whilst advocating for separating the Islamic function of
hakimiyya from the Caliphate in support of popular sovereignty.27
  Second, and partly in response, al-Azhar distilled five critical ques-
tions that required resolution:
1) Can the Islamic world continue without a khilafa (Caliphate)?
2) Is there a reason to maintain a Caliphate or its primacy?
3) Can a resolution to dissolve the Caliphate by the Turkish Grand
National Assembly strip away the legal status of Sultan Abdulmajid
once the requirement of bay‘a has been met?
4) If the continuity of his legal status is assumed, where would he be
based?
5) Is there a concern that if certain claimants to the Caliphate (that is,
the heads of state of Islamic nations) pursue their claims, might the
Muslim world be left in a state of division and disarray?28
  Al-Azhar issued an official declaration on 10 March 1924 entitled
 

Declaration to the People on the Matter of the Caliphate.29 It expressed

dismay with the Turkish nationalists while simultaneously emphasizing
the mandatory nature of the Caliphate. The declaration formally called
for the convening of a congress to resolve these issues.30 In the mean-
time, forty-one ‘ulama’ of al-Azhar had declared that the Caliphate of
Sultan Abdulmajid was still in effect, and this declaration was repeated
worldwide.31
  Shaykh Mohammad Mustafa al-Maraghi (1881–1945), Grand Imam
of al-Azhar (1927–9, 1935–45), was close to the King of Egypt, and
was lobbying for a law that would grant him the power to appoint
future shaykhs. When Maraghi had served as the Chief Mufti of the
Sudan, he wrote an essay that supported the position of Governor-

139
 THE HIJAZ
General of the Sudan, Sir Reginald Wingate, on the requirement that
the Caliphate be held by a descendant of the Quraysh.32 Maraghi argued
that, whether or not the Ottomans were de jure caliphs in the light of
the Qurayshi requirement, as well as the requirement for the caliph to
be the custodian of the Holy Cities of Makkah and Medina, the de facto
claim of the Ottomans to the Caliphate had to be accepted.33
  The Indian Khilafat Movement34 was the first to support the Cairo
Caliphate Congress. Among other things, it proposed that votes should
be represented based on population, and, more importantly, it also
suggested that the Congress should be held in Makkah to resolve the
question of The Hijaz in tandem with the Caliphate question.35 Despite
this, in March 1926, the Khilafat Central Committee apologized to the
Shaykh of al-Azhar, and, in an open letter to the Egyptian people, pro-
claimed that, given the state of the world, choosing a caliph was not
feasible. The letter added that the Committee was preoccupied with
working with Imam Ibn Saud to hold a ‘conference in Mecca’ to decide
on a constitution and a system of rulership for the Hijazi Kingdom.36
Notably, the Khilafat Movement was aware of (and was wary of) Imam
Ibn Saud’s machinations in relation to The Hijaz.
  A significant number of Chinese, Malay, and Indonesian Muslims
were represented by the jurists and ‘ulama’ of the Two Holy Mosques
who were in exile. Among the most prominent of these was Sayyid
Abdullah Dahlan of Makkah, who represented Singapore and South
East Asia. In a letter dated 11 October 1924, Sayyid Dahlan proposed
 

an interesting agenda for the Congress, with some self-determination

ideas beyond nationalism. Specifically, he underscored a number of
points for the consideration of the delegates. First, he emphasized that
if the Caliphate were to have popular currency, a thorough and proper
explanation of the office, its benefits, and its conditions must be delin-
eated. He pointed out that 400 million Muslims were ignorant of the
issue, and that the people must be informed in order to elect a caliph.
Secondly, he requested that invitations be sent out in those languages
that were widely spoken across the Muslim community, such as
Persian, Urdu, Javanese, Malay, Mandarin, and Turkish, so that the ‘true
meaning of the invitation’ would be clear to these diverse groups.
Thirdly, he proposed that the duties, jurisdiction, function, and com-
petencies of the Congress should be made clear. In particular, he rec-

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 ISLAMIC SELF-DETERMINATION
ommended that the Congress should specify the geographical seat of
the Caliphate as well as the conditions for the accession of a caliph. He
further advised that the Congress should determine the form that a
Caliphate government should take, and, in particular, how relations
should be conducted between the Caliphate and other Islamic govern-
ments, irrespective of how these other Islamic governments consti-
tuted themselves. Shalabi reports that these recommendations consti-
tuted the methodology followed vis-à-vis the invitations and the agenda
of the Congress.37
  Concomitantly, Imam Ibn Saud sent his adviser, Hafiz Wahba, to
meet the Egyptian monarch and seek his support against the
Hashemites, in return for Ibn Saud’s acceptance of the invitation to the
Caliphate Congress in Cairo. Ibn Saud sent a letter on 9 December
 

1925 supporting the Cairo Congress, and explaining that he had no

ambition for the khilafa and would give his bay‘a to whomever the
Muslim world supported.38 Moreover, he articulated his support for
the king by declaring him ‘the most suitable Muslim ruler for the
office’.39 However, the situation dramatically shifted when Ibn Saud
secured control over The Hijaz in 1926, and prior arrangements were
disregarded when he officially became the ruler of The Hijaz and Najd.
It is believed that this triggered the anger of the Egyptian king, leading
to unstable relations between Egypt and the new Saudi state for the
next decade. King Fouad realized the potential impact of Ibn Saud’s
move on the Caliphate question, and so he helped accelerate the orga-
nization of the Cairo gathering. However, the Saudi monarch did not
attend the Congress, implicitly rejecting any support for Fouad’s
caliphal aspirations.
  In the face of the news of the rival diplomatic conference convened
by Imam Ibn Saud in Makkah, the Cairo organizers failed to secure
widespread participation.40 Instead of electing a caliph, the agenda of
the Congress was limited to discussions on the necessity of a Caliphate,
its nature, and the possibility of reinstituting the office in the future.41
The situation in the Islamic territories discouraged participation in
Cairo. Turkey and Iran had staunchly secular regimes that were hostile
to the idea, while Great Britain and France did not encourage the par-
ticipation of their subjects for political reasons. Populous Muslim coun-
tries, such as India or Indonesia, and centrally located ones, such as

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 THE HIJAZ
Palestine and Syria, felt that the Congress had been convened for the
benefit of the Egyptian dynasty.42 There were forty formal participants,
but none officially represented any of the fourteen countries they came
from.43 It was agreed that branches of the Congress should be estab-
lished in different countries to prepare further congresses and to
decide the issue of the Caliphate.44
  The rival Congress of the Islamic World was convened in June 1926
in Makkah, in response to a number of invitations from Imam Ibn Saud
to ‘the world’s Muslims’, issued over a period of two years. As the
Caliphate Congress was taking place in Cairo, Ibn Saud feared that any
elected caliph, and especially an Egyptian one, might be a threat to his
recent occupation of the Holy Lands of The Hijaz.45 Initially, the Saudi
conference was to determine the future government for The Hijaz, and
Ibn Saud wanted to present his legal ‘person’ as a ‘trustee’, rather than
conqueror. But with the fall of The Hijaz to the Imam, and his political
ambitions, the agenda of the conference was limited to vague discus-
sions as to how to improve the conditions of the Pilgrimage. Now that
he had been proclaimed King of The Hijaz, Ibn Saud sought Islamic
recognition of his rule over the Holy Cities despite former pledges that
the fate of The Hijaz would be decided by the entire Muslim world.
  The goal was limited to demonstrating ‘formal’ Muslim acceptance
of the new regime, and to push away the debate regarding the
Caliphate.46 By means of artful statesmanship, Imam Ibn Saud effec-
tively separated the territoriality of The Hijaz (as the ‘Islamic state’)
from the rulership of a caliph, and, ultimately, undermined the idea of
a Caliphate altogether. Although many Islamic states did not attend the
conference in Makkah, Egypt sent a delegation of al-Azhar scholars led
by Shaykh al-Zawahiri.47 Al-Zawahiri criticized the Wahhabis, high-
lighted the ‘bigotry of Wahhabism’, and concluded that the Wahhabis
should not be in a position of supervision over the Holy Lands in
Makkah and Medina because of their intolerance of other Islamic
schools of thought. Moreover, al-Zawahiri protested about Imam Ibn
Saud’s address, and noted that he should not claim any authority over
the Muslim world merely as a result of his conquest over The Hijaz.
Likewise, he highlighted the Egyptian rejection of Imam Ibn Saud as a
legitimate ruler over The Hijaz.48
  Another pan-Islamic diplomatic effort was convened in Jerusalem in
December 1931, the General Islamic Congress. It was a joint Indian–

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 ISLAMIC SELF-DETERMINATION
Palestinian effort, organized in response to the growing Zionist chal-
lenge, and was held under the leadership of Haj Amin al-Huseyni, the
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. This conference aimed to generate and com-
mit wider Muslim support for the cause of Muslim Palestine, and chal-
lenge the League of Nations Mandate and the plans to create a Jewish
national home in the area.
  The Indian Khilafat Committee was heavily involved in organizing
the Congress in Jerusalem.49 Initially, the British, as the Mandatory
power, were concerned about the events, as Britain’s Indian subjects
were becoming involved in the Mandate territory and challenging
colonial designs. The Indian Khilafat Movement was yet another entity
to which the British had promised ‘Arab and Islamic unity in the cradle
of Islam’ (that is, The Hijaz), in exchange for their participation in the
war effort, and the Khilafat Movement delegation to Switzerland in
1920 was quick to point out this fact.50 The Khilafat Movement was a
staunch supporter of the Ottomans, viewing anti-Ottoman efforts as
part of the same colonial struggle that India was embroiled in.51 Gandhi
added the force of India’s Hindus, and incorporated the movement into
India’s experiment with civil disobedience.52 The Movement remained
an influential force, and it was courted by virtually every significant
party in the region, including Hussein al-Dabbagh,53 Chaim Weizmann,54
and Imam Ibn Saud.55 Historically, India was among The Hijaz’s most
significant benefactors, together with Egypt. They saw to the replenish-
ment of the Hijazi treasury and supported the Two Holy Cities and the
pilgrims. Furthermore, India’s status in the Islamic world could hardly
be overstated; it represented some 400 million non-Arab Muslims.
Parenthetically, the Indian Khalifat Movement remained one of the
most important catalysts in relation to the diplomatic efforts concern-
ing the Caliphate.
  However, the Congress was then considered as quasi-religious, and
the British adopted the traditional rule of non-intervention in religious
matters.56 The Congress was considered a success. A resolution against
colonial rule was adopted, and the participants condemned colonialism
of Muslim lands categorically and on numerous occasions.57
  A number of Muslim political activists were also defending the
Islamic cause in several European capitals, and promoted cosmopolitan
ideas of Muslim solidarity. The European Muslim Congress of 1935

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 THE HIJAZ
took place in Geneva, and attempted to gather these activists in one
place. Although the Congress was not to be of a political nature, discus-
sions on colonial policies were inevitable. The participants communi-
cated their opposition to the creation of a Jewish national home to the
League of Nations and the British government, stressing that for
Muslims this was a matter of religion, not politics.58 The Conference
also considered the Caliphate as a form of government, and federalism
as an alternative. It was criticized in Islamic territories as being unable
to suggest any meaningful reform from its distant European setting.

Islamic Jurisprudence and the Caliphate

The Caliphate’s abolition led to the emergence of certain key disputes
relating to religion–state relations that have shaped political and reli-
gious discourse since the beginning of the nineteenth century, particu-
larly in the Arab world. Specifically, some argued that Islam was only a
religion, whereas others maintained that it was both a religion and a
political philosophy, and therefore had much to say about governance
and statecraft. This section explores the arguments of ‘Ali Abdel Raziq
(1888–1966), one of the most important intellectuals who rejected the
notion of a Caliphate and challenged the conventional understanding
of the political aspects of Islam.59 This is contrasted with arguments
from al-Sanhuri and others, who held that Islam was not limited to
spirituality. By doing so, one can gain important insights into the nature
of the intellectual, jurisprudential, and political debates regarding the
Caliphate and political authority in Islam.
  The existence of the Ottoman caliph as a symbol of global Muslim
collectivity and the rise of pan-Islamism were seen by some as a hege-
monic unit that went against the new international legal system, which
was being constructed around the concept of the nation-state.
Politically, it made the British particularly uneasy, while Muslim schol-
ars and Ottoman statesmen invoked the Islamic Caliphate to legitimize
their actions and mobilize Muslims in reaction to European coloniza-
tion. In the last years of the Caliphate, it had been observed by some
that the absolutism and ‘despotism’ of Ottoman rulers, and particularly
the reign of Sultan Abduhamid II,60 had raised the critical question of
leadership.61 According to Willis, European Orientalists joined the

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 ISLAMIC SELF-DETERMINATION
debate on the validity of the Ottomans’ claim to the Caliphate and
leadership of Muslims by emphasizing the ‘Arab race’ requirement.
From 1877 the British began to argue that the Ottomans had no right
to the Caliphate.62 George Birdwood suggested it should move to ‘the
Amir of Mecca’ in 12 June 1877. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, who served in
 

the Foreign Office in the 1870s, made a career on the Arab entitlement
issue, the right to Arab possession of the Holy Cities, and promotion of
a Dhawi-‘Awn Hashemite Caliphate.63
  Arab discontent with the Caliphate was also rising, with secret soci-
eties forming as early as 1879.64 Many Muslim reformists, including
‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi and Rashid Rida, criticized what they saw
as the ‘dictatorship’ of Sultan Abduhamid II, along with the increased
role of the Turks. The two scholars were fervent in highlighting the
importance of the Arabs’ role in achieving real progress in all fields:
political, intellectual, and social (namely, the Islamic renaissance), as
well as working to achieve an ‘authentic Caliphate’. Thus, al-Kawakibi
adopted a more oppositionist stance to the Ottomans, especially in his
book Tabai al-Istibdad (The Nature of Tyranny), which he directed
against Sultan Abdulhamid II.65 Al-Kawakibi emphasized his commit-
ment to Islamic revival in his book Umm al-Qura (The Mother of
Villages), in which he proposed Makkah as the most suitable capital of
the Islamic world.66
  The fall of the Caliphate after the First World War resulted in serious
intellectual dilemmas regarding government, leadership, and state-
hood, including the natural demise of the intelligentsia’s appetite for
redefining authority and the Caliphate. This was coupled with the
introduction of ‘Ali Abdel Raziq’s book on Islam and the fundamentals
of government in 1925 (al-Islam wa Usul al-Hukm). The book caused an
intellectual storm that until this day has not been put to rest.
  Abdel Raziq denies that Islam has a discourse of political authority.
His idea builds on Imam al-Juwayni’s (1028–85) Ghyiath al-Umam fi
Iltiyath al-Zulam. Abdel Raziq insists that the Prophet’s authority is
spiritual; and that according to Shari’a, the classical system of the
Caliphate is not mandatory. He argued that the classical idea lacks tex-
tual support, and, especially, legal standing. Shari’a, he argued, does
not contain political confrontations, because it leaves Muslims free to
determine what they see fit for themselves—from rules, values, and
the political aspect of life in particular.

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 THE HIJAZ
  It is interesting to recall the violent criticisms and attacks that were
directed towards Abdel Raziq, which deprived Islamic thought of a
potentially rich and beneficial debate that would have re-examined the
subject of Islamic statehood as a whole. Since that date, Islamic thought
has remained captive to the classical traditions, without confronting
this fundamental issue (or itself). That is the case with Muslim
Brotherhood thinking, starting with Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb,
and continuing all the way to this day.67 This tradition needs to allow its
captive thought to take form in practice, through the functional Islamic
tool of legitimate policy.
  However, ‘Ali Abdel Raziq’s book did not just trigger controversial
debates; it critically questioned the essence of the debates on state–
religion intersectionality.68 He focused on the early time of the Prophet
with a special emphasis on the religious mission, which he believed
would make clear the real essence of Islamic ‘political authority
claims’, and, by extension, the sources of the Caliphate as an ‘Islamic
system of governance’. He argued that at the time of the Prophet: a)
Arabs lived in different political entities; b) they were ruled by differ-
ent political systems and methods of governance; and c) that the
Prophet did not change these existing structures and political systems
after they converted to Islam. He moreover stated that the Prophet
emphasized in his final speech before his death that his ‘mission had
been completed’. Accordingly, if he was prescribing any particular
form of government, how could he not have clarified the forms, rules,
or norms that govern this state? He goes even further, and argues that
the Prophet did not appoint a successor: ‘If Islam requires a certain
form of governance then it would have been clarified by the Prophet.’69
Abdel Raziq’s conclusion, in this respect, excludes the state from the
Prophet’s mission, as he asserts that ‘all these functions are purely
political; they have nothing to do with religion’.70
  Consequently, in contrast to the dominant classical beliefs in Islamic
political thought, Abdel Raziq rejected the existence of any specific
Islamic system of government, including the Prophetic era and the
Rightly Guided Caliphate.71 He founded his argument on the absence
of any basis in the Qur’an, Sunna, or ijma‘ that could support the estab-
lishment of such a specific form of political authority. He advanced four
propositions in support of his position:

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 ISLAMIC SELF-DETERMINATION
1) The chief purpose of the Prophet was purely spiritual, not political;
and that people’s submission was to faith, and not to government
or power. By extension, the leadership of the Prophet was purely
religious.
2) The Prophet during his life never hinted to any form of Islamic or
Arab state; therefore, it was not his intention to establish an empire.
3) The Prophet did not bring political changes to the established
authority structures among the Arabs; rather, he brought about a
moral revolution.
4) The Caliphate was not part of the religious functions; rather, it
‘hindered the progress of the Muslims’, as he saw it as the source
of corruption and decline of Muslims.72
  For Abdel Raziq, all other forms of governance that came after the
Rashidun were monarchies based on force and power. He therefore
concluded that there is no consensus that the Caliphate is a religious
obligation found in the tenets of Islam.
  Abdalrazzak al-Sanhuri Pasha (1895–1971) attempted to counter
this conclusion.73 He argued that Abdel Raziq had confused the exis-
tence of the Caliphate and the selection of the caliphs. As for the first,
it has acquired the rank of ‘consensus’ in the Muslim umma ever since
the time of Abu Bakr, who declared the necessity of establishing the
Caliphate to guarantee the implementation of the Shari’a. Concerning
the subsequent use of power and force, this related to competing
claims for the position of caliph—an endemic tendency on the part of
all nations in history. Consequently, it would be wrong to claim that
there was no consensus on the Caliphate system.74 Furthermore, al-
Sanhuri elucidated that what Abdel Raziq did was to base his argument
on the exploitation of religion by some caliphs in their extensive des-
potism, using this to ‘prove’ the assertion that the Caliphate was based
on power and force. This, al-Sanhuri argued, has nothing to do with the
Caliphate, and Islam is not responsible for the attitude of any particular
caliph. Rather, it is the responsibility of the people who were silent in
the face of these dictatorial governments that led to the distortion of
Islamic good-governance practices, and contradicted the Shari’a.75
Al-Sanhuri therefore considered Abdel Raziq’s argument regarding the
Caliphate as an ‘odd opinion’.76 For al-Sanhuri, it was essential to dis-
tinguish between the sanctioned Rightly Guided Caliphates that had

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 THE HIJAZ
been implemented by the Rashidun and the incomplete or inauthentic
Caliphate(s) that followed.77
  Moreover, most Muslim scholars consider the consensus of the
Prophet’s companions as a legitimate source of religious sanction in
support of the religious legitimacy of the Caliphate. They strongly deny
any theocratic or secular claims to the system of governance. Rather,
they assert that the Caliphate did not only consist of a caliph, but also
included governmental institutions and other bodies that worked
together to achieve certain interests and goals for the umma. The
Caliphate, in this sense, is a civil institution that is mainly formed by
the nation (people). Invariably, it was affected by religion, but it was
not ‘theocratic’. At the same time, it was not a ‘secular’ form of gover-
nance that ignored religion, nor one based on force, as in a tyranny or
dictatorship. Islamic scholar Muhammad Imarah quoted Taha Hussein’s
assertion that no caliph would impose himself as a ruler without gain-
ing the consent of the people and concluding a ‘contract’ with them.78
The legitimacy of the Caliphate is therefore entirely conditional on the
consent of the people. Its covenantal form indicates that the caliph has
a duty to govern and consider the affairs of citizens with justice, and to
follow the Prophet Mohammad’s path as far as possible. In turn,
Muslims declare obedience, while committing themselves to advising
and assisting the caliph.
  Al-Sanhuri pointed out that:
The Rightly Guided Caliphate is distinguished from other governments
by three main characteristics, namely: (1) the authorities of the govern-
ment (caliph) in general, which covers the integration between reli-
gious and worldly affairs. (2) The government of the Caliphate has a
commitment to implementing the rules of Shari’a (Islamic law). (3)
The Caliphate is primarily established for the unity of the Muslim
world. Thus, whenever these characteristics exist in the Islamic govern-
ment, it becomes legitimate and thereby deserves to be called a rightly
guided Caliphate, whatever the form of this government looks like.79
  Framing the debate along the same lines as al-Sanhuri, Imarah80
explains that the legal objectives of the Caliphate are, inter alia: (1) to
achieve the unity of the Muslim umma (as a religious obligation); (2)
maintaining the integrity of the Islamic territories—prescribed by the
concept of dar al-islam; (3) to preserve the sovereignty of the Islamic

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 ISLAMIC SELF-DETERMINATION
Shari’a (al-hakimiyya). These three conditions are required to preserve
both the religion and the political leadership of society. Imarah also
argues that the nature of political authority in Islam was established by
the Prophet, and had its foundations in the Constitutional Assembly of
621 CE. The Constitutional Assembly coincided with the first ‘pledge
 

of allegiance’ in Aqaba the same year, by which political power was

distributed tricamerally as follows: (1) the princes (the Muhajirun); (2)
the ministers (the twelve naqib from the Ansar) and; (3) the consultative
council (ahl al-hall wa al-‘aqd).81
  Overall, Abdel Raziq’s work should be seen in the context of internal
and international political crises such as the decline of the Ottomans and
the unprecedented era of chaos following the First World War and the fall
of the Caliphate in 1924. These factors influenced both the content of the
monograph and the significant debate it generated.
  The responses to Abdel Raziq’s work were numerous. He was dis-
missed from his position at al-Azhar under pressure from the Egyptian
king.82 His work also generated a good deal of scholastic response,
much of it critical. The most significant of these responses was from
Muhammad Imarah.83 Although many scholars interpreted Abdel
Raziq’s views as a negation of temporal doctrines within Islam, Imarah
notes the scholar’s denial of these claims; Abdel Raziq replied to his
critics regarding the Caliphate by arguing that Islam does not impose
any particular type or form of government upon Muslims, but allows
them to determine one in reponse to the contingencies of time and
space. In this respect, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Fahmi, Egypt’s Minister of Justice,84
stated that when he read Abdel Raziq’s book, he did not find anything
objectionable. Instead, Fahmi considered Abdel Raziq’s work to be
emphasizing that prophethood is based on revelation, and there is no
khilafa (succession) in matters of revelation (that is, prophethood).85
  Abdel Raziq’s scholarship cannot be divorced from geopolitical
developments of the time, especially those in Turkey and Egypt.
According to Imarah, Abdel Raziq’s book was written primarily to
counter King Fouad’s claims to the Caliphate. Imarah observes that
Abdel Raziq’s introduction included strong criticism of the king and
the nature of the political authority of kingdoms.86 A further motive for
Abdel Raziq’s work was the rise of Wahhabism and the proposition that
all Muslims should be considered ‘sinners’ unless they restore the
Caliphate. He countered this view, along with the political ambitions

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 THE HIJAZ
of the king, by arguing that the position of the Caliphate in Islam was
not a religious obligation, and, accordingly, it is not essential.87

Caliphate and Muslim Unity

The fall of the Caliphate in 1924 led to the emergence of more Islamic
reformists and movements that sought the preservation of the ultimate
objectives of the Caliphate.88 The reformist trend is distinguished by
being a realist perspective, in the sense that it acknowledges that tradi-
tional views may have to be reassessed in the light of modern circum-
stances and changing political realities. One major example of the
contemporary reform efforts vis-à-vis the future of the Caliphate came
from none other than the jurist al-Sanhuri. His scholarship has earned
him the appellation ‘the Father of Arab Constitutions’.89 His second
doctoral thesis argued in favour of an evolution of the Caliphate
towards a ‘League of Oriental Nations’ (fiqh al-khilafa wa-tatawwururha
li tusbih ‘usbat umam islamiyya).90
  Al-Sanhuri’s main critique of traditional scholars was in their desire
to return the Caliphate to its earliest form, without taking into consid-
eration the increased tendency towards nationalist claims. At the same
time, he criticized those who called for extreme nationalism as it
existed in Europe.
  Al-Sanhuri offered an innovative view based on a function-over-
form assessment of the Caliphate, a view that considers the new
dimensions in the Muslim world—specifically, nationalist tendencies—
while also attempting to achieve the objectives of the Caliphate dis-
cussed above. This teleogical approach is known maqasid al-shari‘a in
the lexicon of Islamic jurisprudence.
  Al-Sanhuri states:
As the impossibility of having [the] Caliphate in its full form is now
obvious to all, there is no other option but to establish incomplete
Islamic government, as necessary, depending on the current circum-
stances of the Muslim world. Such an incomplete system should be
considered temporary, as the ultimate goal should always be seeking a
return to the full Caliphate in the future, should events allow it. The
Shari’a does not impose a particular form of governance; rather, any
system of governance that provides the three main characteristics of the
Caliphate is authentic and legitimate. … We have to consider the

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 ISLAMIC SELF-DETERMINATION
increased tendency towards nationalism in which there is a need to find
a way for a unity between Muslim communities, at the same time giv-
ing each country a kind of full internal self-determination. … The idea
of Muslim unity under the form of [a] Muslim League would provide a
settlement and compromise between the nationalist tendency and the
unity of Muslim countries.91
  Al-Sanhuri’s perspective on a new Caliphate and its executive
authority in the Islamic system of governance is given in the following
statement:
The Caliphate government is distinguished by the following elements:
1. The caliph is not just the civil ruler; he is also the religious leader of
Muslims. (This does not mean [that the caliph would have] any reli-
gious authority that supersedes the Shari’a; his duties would mainly
consist of leading prayers and other religious functions that require
the existence of an imam). Thus, he could be called the Imam in the
performance of religious tasks, and Commander of the Faithful
when acting or dealing with civil issues.
2. The caliph should implement the rules of Shari’a (this does not
mean that he should follow a certain school of thought; rather, he
should encourage ijtihad in considering the people’s interests, even
if this goes against what is known in the books of other schools of
thought.
3. The scope of the caliph’s authority should include the whole Muslim
world, as the unity of Islam requires a single caliph, and this applies
in the full Caliphate system. However, under the current circum-
stances it could be permissible to have more than one caliph, though
in this case it would make an incomplete Caliphate.
The full Caliphate may be achieved if the governments of Muslim states
agreed on a process of mutual convergence and understanding to estab-
lish one organization similar to a ‘Muslim League’ that would sit atop
these governments in a sort of ‘Caliphate Consortium’. It would be
much appreciated if there was attached to this organization an indepen-
dent council whose primary task was to consider and investigate the
religious affairs of Muslims.92
  Furthermore, al-Sanhuri spells out a functionalist social, economic,
educational, and national agenda in his revival programme:
The revival of [the] Caliphate should be preceded by several economic,
linguistic, and legal renascences which [would] link the Muslim nation

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 THE HIJAZ
and introduce a new ‘Muslim League’ as a political system. These rena-
scences are categorised as follows: (i) Shari’a reform that would make
 

the Caliphate suitable for the current era. (ii) Linguistic reform that
 

includes introducing some amendments and unifying different dialects

as much as possible. (iii) Economic reform that would link these coun-
 

tries in trade and economic treaties and unions. (iv) Reform and
 

renewal of Islamic and Oriental knowledge.93

  In this regard, Imarah argued that the Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation (OIC) could play a vital role in being the ‘Muslim League
of Nations’. If it was run with good intentions and efficient administra-
tion, it could represent the Caliphate in its new form.94
  Islamic jurisprudential views on the Caliphate from Makkah took on
a practical dimension, focusing on the state as it was developing in
tandem with the first political party in The Hijaz. The relations between
nations and the Caliphate would vary, depending on their actual gov-
ernments. They would generally take on seven variations in their inter-
national organization. These categories are:
Category A)      Nations directly governed by the Caliphate.
Category B)      Nations under independent Islamic states that have rep-
resentative parliaments.
Category C)   Nations under independent Islamic states that have no
representative parliaments.
Category D)  Nations under non-independent Islamic states that have
representative parliaments.
Category E)      Nations under non-independent Islamic states that have
no representative parliaments.
Category F)       Nations under non-Islamic states that have representative
parliaments.
Category G) Nations under non-Islamic states and have no representa-
tive parliaments.
  They rationalize this by giving priority to the operational level of
involvement of each of the seven categories of nations with the Caliphate
and the imam (or caliph), their obligations and his obligations and func-
tion on their behalf, while considering the need to abide by the ‘laws of
the modern era’. The categories seem to focus on several practical con-
stitutional norms: ethno-centic nationalism, Islamic conceptions of gov-

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 ISLAMIC SELF-DETERMINATION
ernment, territoriality, populations and minorities, independence and
colonial rule, and, most interestingly, democratic self-government.
  This Grand Mosque perspective seems to have taken a completely
realist approach to international law and the idea of the Caliphate. This
view, shared with the Cairo Congress, most probably was a result of
the mutual experience of the Hijazi religious establishment and the
political elite with the state of chaos in The Hijaz. It is worth noting
that with the abdication of Sharif Hussein, The Hijaz National Party was
in coordination with the Makkan Islamic establishment, as they sought
to establish a modern Islamic constitutional system in The Hijaz.95

153
 6

INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT

ON THE HIJAZ

The Saudi invasion of the sovereign state of The Hijaz in 1924 has clear
parallels with Iraq’s invasion of the sovereign state of Kuwait in August
1990. As states, they were the victims of an aggressive Islamic Arab
neighbour, and both maintained a close and controversial relationship
with a major power. However, each of these actions was treated com-
pletely differently under international law. This chapter looks at why
that was the case.
  The context of Iraq’s attack on Kuwait was several years of rising
tensions between the two states. Kuwait had loaned money to Iraq,
especially in the early 1980s, to help finance Iraq’s war with Iran
(1980–8). Iraq later on claimed that it perceived these loans as ‘free
aid’ for the cause of the war and the issue of the debt became another
area of friction. There was further escalation when, in 1989–90, Iraq—
economically pressured by debt and the extraordinarily low price of
oil—accused Kuwait of ‘slant drilling’ into its Rumaila oil fields and of
intentionally over-producing crude oil. In reaction to what Iraq claimed
to be a form of ‘economic warfare’, and perhaps in hope of erasing
some of its excessive debt, Saddam Hussein’s army invaded Kuwait on
2 August 1990.1
 

  However, although there may have been grounds for international

arbitration, or perhaps a referral to the International Court of Justice,

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 THE HIJAZ
it was certainly not the legal justification for an invasion. According to
the United Nations Charter, a state may defend itself from aggression
by force of arms, but only as a matter of temporary expediency. This
action or force can be reversed by a later ruling of the UN Security
Council. After the invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein tried to make
a post-facto case for his military action.
  Iraq declared that the invasion was in reality an Iraqi internal affair,
and therefore screened from the international community by Iraq’s
status as a sovereign state. Iraq argued that Kuwait was originally part
of the Iraqi ‘Fatherland’, having been set up as an independent shaykh-
dom by the British government in 1913 by means of the Anglo-
Ottoman Convention.2 Although Kuwait had ceded responsibility for
its foreign relations to Britain in 1899, it was officially part of the
Ottoman vilayet of Basra,3 and that status had never changed, nor had
its frontiers been clearly redrawn so as to separate it from the vilayet.
Iraq therefore claimed that it was simply re-establishing Kuwait’s true
status as an official province of Iraq.4
  In the aftermath of the 2 August invasion, the Security Council
 

passed eleven resolutions demanding immediate Iraqi withdrawal, lead-

ing to the well-known Resolution 678, which conditionally authorized
the use of force. Although many political justifications were offered
both publicly and privately for the 1991 Gulf War (among which were
the abuses of the Hussein regime and the necessity of safeguarding the
oil resources of Saudi Arabia), the most prominent legal factor was the
violation of the territorial integrity of a member state of the UN. In  

other words, Kuwait’s sovereignty (irrespective of the authoritarian

nature of the regime) served as the most validly accepted casus belli.
Similar to Japan’s annexation of Manchukuo in the inter-war period,
Iraq’s aggression galvanized the international community in support of
the sacrosanct principle of sovereignty, and the role of sovereignty as
the guarantor of self-determination.
  The position of Kuwait seemed relatively straightforward. Although
some commentators were willing to concede Iraq’s point that national
boundaries had been drawn up in a less than an ideal way, and for
perhaps questionable motives, nobody seriously believed that Iraq had
successfully established in international law that Kuwait was part of
Iraq, and that therefore Saddam’s army was supressing a twenty-nine-

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 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ
year-old revolt. As discussed in Chapter 4, the 1923 Tinoco Claims
arbitration case gave great weight to the de facto existence of a govern-
ment. Notably, the government of Iraq, including that administered by
Saddam’s Ba’ath regime, had conducted dealings with the government
of Kuwait in such a way that it showed it to be a legitimate government
operating within a legally constituted state.

The Legal Background

In order to understand why The Hijaz was not treated in the same way
as Kuwait, it is necessary to consider the legal foundations of state law
in the twentieth century, and, in particular, the development of the
right to self-determination during and after the First World War.
  As discussed earlier, the dominant and most influential legal theory
regarding how states came into being was the constitutive theory of
statehood: in short, that (new or aspiring) states do not come into
existence until other established states recognize them. This theory
crystallized during the Congress of Vienna in 1815 when the post-
Napoleonic map of Europe was settled. Among the outcomes of the
Final Act of the Congress was that polities would not enjoy the rights
of sovereignty until recognized by other powers, namely the Great
Powers of the day. Holsti observes the following:
While France, Prussia, Sweden, Venice, Spain and others may have been
sovereigns by historical longevity, new claimants to this status had to be
recognised to gain entrance into the club. A state could exist in fact, but
until it had received diplomatic recognition, it had none of the rights
associated with sovereignty. Recognition then, is crucial to the creation
of states.5
  Recognition was, accordingly, the decisive yardstick by which a state
could be deemed to exist in law.
  In practice, the constitutive theory led to a number of problems.
  Firstly, in the absence of recognition, a ‘civilized’ member of the
community of nations was not bound by the dictates of international
law in dealing with the ‘non-state’ entity. As Oppenheim observed, ‘the
formation of a new state is … a matter of fact and not law. It is through
[international] recognition, which is a matter of law, that such a new
state becomes subject to international law.’6

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 THE HIJAZ
  Secondly, it led to manifest confusion when a new state was recog-
nized by some existing states but not others. Hersch Lauterpacht7
attempted to resolve this problem by suggesting that international law
created a duty to recognize a new state when certain criteria were
met.8 However, there is no evidence that states were beholden to a
legal duty of recognition when a new state meets these criteria.9
  The third problem, which stems from the second, is that, in the
absence of a duty to recognize, the act of recognition became subject
to political expediency on the part of the recognizing state. The prism
through which the constitutive theory should be viewed is that of
empire. Imperial maps were constantly in a state of flux as the result of
diplomatic concession. The question of whether Alsace–Lorraine
belonged to Prussia/Germany or France, for instance, was resolved by
the Great Powers that ‘recognized’ a new state of affairs resulting from
armed conflict. As legal norms are readily descriptive as often as they
are prescriptive, recognition giving rise to legal personality was logical
in an imperial age.
  The constitutive approach to statehood under international law was
later superseded by the declaratory theory, which gained prominence
in 1924 with the decision in the Tinoco Claims Arbitration. The declar-
atory theory suggests that the question of statehood is a question of
fact, which subsequent recognition merely confirms. This view would
later be codified in the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and
Duties of States in 1933.

The 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States

Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention prescribes four criteria that a
state must possess to be considered a state under international law. It
must possess a permanent population, a defined territory, a govern-
ment, and a capacity to enter into relations with other states.10 These
points may sound like a statement of the obvious, and indeed they are
close to the earlier formulations, such as Georg Jellinek’s ‘doctrine of
three elements’ (Drei Elementen Lehre) in the late nineteenth century.11
James Lorimer presented a nearly identical formula in 1883.12
Nevertheless, it did constitute a move away from the constitutive the-
ory, and this was completed by several cases in the interwar period,

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notably the Aaland Islands (1920) and the Deutsche Continental Gas
Gesellschaft Arbitration (1929).13 In the latter case, the Montevideo
requirements were seen as so incontrovertible that an arbitrator could
simply pronounce that ‘a state does not exist unless it fulfills the condi-
tion of possessing a territory, a people inhabiting that territory and a
public power that is exercised over the people and the territory’ with-
out further explanation.14
  By 1933 there was enough state practice for the Montevideo
Convention to be declaratory of customary international law. Grant
claims that the reason why the framing of the Montevideo Convention
has gone largely unexamined is because its content was a restatement
of ideas prevalent at the time of its framing.15 He further states that ‘so
apparent were the Montevideo criteria to contemporary observers that
few thought to inquire as to their basis of origin’.16
  Nevertheless, Montevideo was a landmark agreement, because it
took the granting of statehood out of the prerogative of the Great
Powers. For example, the Convention was seen as an achievement for
Latin American states, as they could recognize one another in accor-
dance with the principles set out in the Convention, even though they
were not recognized by their former colonial masters.17
  The Convention’s principles on statehood now represent customary
international law; this has arguably been inspired by the European
Union via the Badinter Commission, which also emphasized that rec-
ognition by other states is purely declaratory.18

The Territorial Principle

The issue of statehood in international law, which is mostly a phenom-
enon developed in connection with its geographical aspect,19 provides
a normative framework which supports the classic conception of the
international legal order. Within that framework, the principles of self-
determination and of territorial integrity are the most important.
Those two principles, and especially the principle of self-determina-
tion, will be discussed here, also in connection with the problem of the
use of force.
  The principle of territorial integrity of states is one of the most
fundamental principles of international law.20 That principle, enshrined

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 THE HIJAZ
already in the Covenant of the League of Nations,21 within the UN
system, is protected by the following rules: (a) Article 2 (4) of the UN
Charter—the prohibition of the threat or use of force against the
political integrity and political independence of states; and (b) Article
2 (7) of the UN Charter—the prohibition of interference in the
domestic jurisdiction of states.
  The continuing significance of territorial integrity was confirmed by
the preamble and by the principles enshrined in the Friendly Relations
Declaration of the UN General Assembly.22 In the preamble, the UN
General Assembly inter alia expressed its conviction that any attempt
aimed at a partial or total disruption of the national unity and territo-
rial integrity of a state or country, or at its political independence, is
incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter, which
recalls the duty of states to refrain in their international relations from
military, political, economic, or any other form of coercion aimed
against the political independence or territorial integrity of any state.
  Of course, the principle is recognized not only within the UN sys-
tem, but worldwide. The principle of territorial integrity was
addressed and reaffirmed, for instance, in the Helsinki Final Act
(1975), sections I, II, and IV, stating that ‘the participating states will
respect the territorial integrity of each of the participating states’.23
Such commitments have also been reaffirmed in the context of numer-
ous other regional arrangements, such as, for example, the
Organisation of the Islamic Conference or Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation (OIC) whereby the member states commit ‘to respect,
safeguard and defend the national sovereignty, independence and ter-
ritorial integrity of all Member States’.24
  Therefore, it is not contested that the principle is well established.
However, such a conclusion does not mean that it is absolute. To cite one
example, and one that is crucial for the question of Hijazi rights, there
may be a limitation imposed on territorial integrity by other principles
of international law—such as the principle of self-determination.
  The clash between values, principles, or norms under international
law is nothing new. An example of that kind of situation, the clash
between the principle of territorial integrity and other principles—
namely the principle of the self-determination of peoples—is com-
monly invoked.25 The International Court of Justice observed that
tension between the two principles in the case Burkina Faso/Mali.26

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 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ
Could The Hijaz Secede from the Saudi State?
We now turn to the question of whether a state such as The Hijaz, if it
established through some form of popular mandate a wish to become
a devolved entity, including an independent state, could do so under
international law.
  The clash is between self-determination and territorial integrity. Its
origin can be traced back to the American Declaration of Independence
and the French Revolution. In the case of France, self-determination was
used to annex the territories of Avignon, Belgium, and the Palatinate, in
accordance with the will of the population, as expressed in plebiscites.27
But as we discussed previously, the principle was developed and shaped
into a legal doctrine by Vladimir Lenin and Woodrow Wilson.28
  Lenin was not the only one among left-wing activists,29 although he
was the first, to stress so strongly at the international level that the
right of self-determination be established as a general criterion for the
liberation of peoples. Lenin’s understanding of the self-determination
principle, as explained by Antonio Cassese,30 consists of three compo-
nents. The first requires that the ethnic or national group should decide
their own destiny freely to secede from the state to which they were
attached or to demand autonomy. That principle was included in the
Constitution of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
(RSFSR), especially in chapter III.31 The second component means that
the principle of self-determination should play a major role in deciding
on the allocation of territories following military conflicts between
sovereign states. In such a case, the will of the people concerned should
be taken into account. The third component refers to the people under
colonial domination, stressing that they should be able to gain indepen-
dence. This component of the self-determination principle can be
labelled an ‘anti-colonial postulate’. However, the freedom to secede
and ‘the complete emancipation of all oppressed nations’ are seen not
as the ultimate aim, but as a mean to achieve the goal—namely, the
‘inevitable integration of nations’.32 The implementation of the prin-
ciple of self-determination, as explained by Lenin, was to be primarily
realized either through forcible secession or via free expression of a
popular vote—plebiscite or referendum. The principle of self-deter-
mination presented and elaborated by Lenin was very generous and

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promising. However, as it was stated in 1916 in the ‘Theses on the
Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination’,33
and was also proved by the actions of the Soviet Union toward the
nations of Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, and others in 1918, the principle
was only a tool for a class struggle and its related ideology, and played
a subordinate role. But it should be properly acknowledged that,
because of the Soviet focus on that principle, especially regarding its
anti-colonial component, it resulted in the proliferation of the princi-
ple on the international plane.34
  US President Woodrow Wilson also advocated for self-determina-
tion.35 However, his understanding of the concept was different from
the socialists’ view. For Wilson, the most important feature of that
principle, different from Lenin’s three components, was self-gover-
nance: the right of peoples to freely choose their governments.
Wilson’s understanding of that principle crystallized in the context and
immediate aftermath of the First World War.36 Peoples were to be free
to choose their own sovereigns, and self-determination should be the
guiding principle in relation to the post-war settlements—including
the division of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, as well as
the fate of certain European nations, such as the Poles.37
  In addition, President Wilson was well disposed towards the Arab
cause. As McNamara notes: ‘[Wilson] was far more impressed by the
Arab case and Feisal in particular. Bonsal heard him say at the end of
February 1919: “Listening to the Emir I think to hear the voice of lib-
erty, a strange, and, I fear, a stray voice coming from Asia”’.38 What is
particularly interesting in Wilson’s understanding of the self-determi-
nation principle is that he perceived, as early as at the beginning of the
twentieth century, its two dimensions. Apart from the external dimen-
sion—understood as the freedom of the people to choose their sover-
eign—Wilson crucially highlighted, and strongly advocated, self-gov-
ernance: the domestic dimension of self-determination. By ‘sovereign’,
Wilson implied that the people of the territory in question were free
to choose under which power they would be—for example, whether
they would be, or remain, a colony and attached to a Great Power,
either as an independent entity or a dependence—such as a Protecto­
rate or a Mandate. Self-government, on the other hand, implied that
the peoples in question were free to determine their internal, national

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 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ
system of governance—namely, their type of government. In other
words, for Wilson, self-determination, as a principle, had the potential
of paving the way, post-war, for greater freedom, peace, and prosper-
ity, both among and within nations.39
  However, the principle of self-determination had to fit within the
existing rules and be implemented in a non-violent way in accordance
with international law. That is why the self-determination principle
regarding colonial claims, as expressed in point 5 of Wilson’s Fourteen
Points,40 had to be interpreted within the framework of international
law, taking into account the interests of colonial powers. Wilson’s great
achievement was to introduce the concept of self-determination to the
international plane during the conferences after the First World War.
But, as some of the scholars present noted, ‘Wilson was not aware of
all the implications of his theory when he so forcefully and eloquently
proposed it in the international arena; in other words, he naively
underestimated the consequences that his ideas would produce on the
international scene’.41
  The self-determination principle was not incorporated into legal
documents because the colonial powers would not have allowed it.
During the period of the League of Nations, self-determination, the
sole statehood operative principle, was highly politicized42 and proved
to be a norm with little substantive content. Its legal value can be
found in Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which
covered the Mandate System and the creation of the ‘A’ Mandates,
which were conferred on countries where independence was contem-
plated in the relatively near future. Therefore, the Mandate System can
be seen some kind of concession to the self-determination concept.
  As mentioned previously, many suspected that the Mandates were
an excuse to continue colonial relationships under cover of the League
of Nations, and without reducing the Central Powers’ liabilities for war
reparations. This interpretation was borne out by Sykes–Picot, which
gave them access to a strategic network of ports, railways, and fossil
fuels, while satisfying the British obsession with safeguarding the route
to India. The United States was asked to act as the Mandatory power
over Armenia, as the British and the French did not want to assume
responsibility for a state that had little material or strategic relevance
to their imperial designs. ‘Self-determination’ was therefore seen as a

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 THE HIJAZ
phrase without substantive meaning, save in those circumstances where
political brownie points could be scored with domestic electorates and
colonial subjects who would be placated by the promise that they
would eventually win their freedom from their colonizers.
  Unfortunately, the concept was deemed irrelevant in cases where it
went against the will of the victorious states. The Allies decided arbi-
trarily which populations were entitled to express their will by plebi-
scite, and whereas the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian and
Ottoman Empires were forced to guarantee minority rights, the same
obligation was not applied to the Great Powers. Such selective applica-
tion of the principle of self-determination showed that, where it mat-
tered, realpolitik trumped Wilsonian idealism.
  The international system would undergo a further paradigmatic shift
with the signing of the San Francisco Treaty establishing the United
Nations in 1945. This would have significant implications in relation to
statehood. The inter-war period paid much lip-service to the impor-
tance of ‘self-determination’ for obvious reasons. The First World War
context was one in which nationalist passions simmered to a boil
against imperial powers. As a result, the aspiration of the League of
Nations was to incorporate into itself the notions that all peoples had a
right to self-determination and that war would be unequivocally ille-
gal, irrespective of its justifications.43 Both of these founding pillars
proved to be catastrophic.
  As for the unconditional prohibition on the recourse to force, it
simply failed, as there were no meaningful ways of sanctioning viola-
tors.44 It also failed to prevent the rise of fascist ideologies in Germany,
Italy, and Spain, which were backed by heightened militarization. With
limited tools at its disposal, negotiation, concession, and expulsion
were the only means available to the international community. The
British conceded Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in the Munich
Agreement of 1938, after, together with France, falling into the trap of
‘appeasement’ towards Adolf Hitler’s Germany. Japan voluntarily with-
drew from the League in 1933 following its invasion of Manchuria.
And, as discussed in detail in Chapter 4, the Kingdom of Najd, under
the leadership of Ibn Saud, invaded and absorbed the state of The Hijaz
into the unitary Kingdom of Hijaz and Najd in 1925. The Saudi–
Wahhabi aggression, which started with the Taif massacre and culmi-

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 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ
nated with the eventual assimilation of The Hijaz into Ibn Saud’s king-
dom, was recognized by the British in the Treaty of Jeddah in 1927.
  Once a member left (if not generally), there were no substantive
measures that the League could take in order to maintain international
peace and security, or indeed to reverse a state of affairs, owing to the
aforementioned general commitment to avoid the use of force.
  After San Francisco, Chapter VII of the UN Charter set out the ‘ways
and means’ by which force could be authorized by the Security Council
and deployed by the UN itself (peacekeeping forces, stabilization
forces, or peace-enforcement operations by coalitions of member
states acting under UN Security Council resolution). The inclusion of
France as a permanent member of the Security Council was the result
of British lobbying. France was the only other major colonial power,
and its vote and veto could be counted on by the British in the defence
of colonial interests. Article 51 allowed for the use of force in indi-
vidual or collective self-defence, and the UN Charter prohibited the
use of force against other member states outside that provision.
  It is noteworthy that the issues of previous invasions and annexations
were not addressed by the incoming United Nations. Although annexed
or occupied nations such as France, the Netherlands, and Czechoslovakia
were permitted to enter into the UN system as sovereign states, two
cases that were never fully or even partially resolved by the UN were
The Hijaz and Palestine. The bloody conquest and absorption of the
Kingdom of Hijaz by the Sultanate of Najd in 1925, and the role of the
British in it, was never investigated. Indeed, the status of the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia was fixed under Article 2(7) of the United Nations
Charter, which stated:
Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United
Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domes-
tic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such
matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle
shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under
Chapter VII.45
  Article 2(7) was most famously tested when India attempted to
challenge the policy of apartheid in 1952 by alleging that South
Africans of Indian origin had been victimized under it.46 South
Africa responded by claiming that South African nationals of Indian

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 THE HIJAZ
descent were not Indian nationals, and that India was not claiming
that they were.
  The major change in the legal status of the principle of self-deter-
mination occurred during and after the Second World War. On
14 August 1941 Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed
 

the Atlantic Charter. In that document the two leaders expressed their
desire ‘to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely
expressed wishes of the peoples concerned’ and that ‘they respect the
right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which
they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-govern-
ment restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them’.47
Finally, the self-determination principle was incorporated into a legally
binding document, and forged into international law by the Charter of
the United Nations. The legal bases for the principle within the Charter
are Article 1 (2)48 and Article 55.49 However, the content of that prin-
ciple was disputable and ambiguous. Neither the precise content of the
principle nor the meaning of the term ‘people’ was clarified.
  In the new legal situation after the Second World War the United
States had proposed that the Mandate of Palestine be placed under the
Trusteeship Council. With the creation of the state of Israel, this point
became moot, at least for the United States. President Truman’s unilat-
eral recognition of Israel came as something of a shock to both the US
ambassador to the UN, Warren Austin, and Secretary of State George
Marshall, who advanced the idea as a matter of policy that ‘the proposal
for a … UN trusteeship for Palestine is the only idea presently being
considered that will allow the United Nations to presently address the
difficult situation in Palestine’.50
  The Mandate System, which had operated under the League of
Nations, was now replaced by the Trusteeship Council of the United
Nations. The goal was to oversee the decolonization of those dependent
territories that were now to be placed under international Trusteeship.51
Ultimately, eleven territories were placed under Trusteeship: seven in
Africa and four in Oceania. Ten of the trust territories had previously
been League of Nations Mandates; the eleventh was Italian Somaliland.
Under the Charter, the Trusteeship Council was to consist of an equal
number of United Nations Member States administering Trust
Territories and non-administering states. Thus, the Council was to

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 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ
consist of: (1) all UN members administering Trust Territories; (2) the
five permanent members of the Security Council; and (3) as many
other non-administering members as needed to equalize the number
of administering and non-administering members, elected by the
United Nations General Assembly for renewable three-year terms.
Over time, as Trust Territories attained independence, the size and
workload of the Trusteeship Council was reduced, and ultimately came
to include only the five permanent Security Council members (China,
France, the Soviet Union/Russian Federation, the United Kingdom,
and the United States: the P5).
  In 1960 the UN drastically shifted its stance regarding colonial and
non-self-governing territories with the passage of UN General
Assembly Resolution 1514, which stated:
1. The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and
exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is
contrary to the [UN] Charter … and is an impediment to the pro-
motion of world peace and co-operation.
2. All peoples have the right to self-determination; … [to] freely
determine their political status and freely pursue their economic,
social and cultural development.
3. Inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational prepared-
ness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.
4. All armed action or repressive measures of all kinds directed against
dependent peoples shall cease … to enable them to exercise peace-
fully and freely their right to complete independence, and the integ-
rity of their national territory shall be respected.
5. Immediate steps shall be taken, in Trust and Non-Self-Governing
Territories or all other territories which have not yet attained inde-
pendence, to transfer all powers to the peoples of those territories,
without any conditions or reservations, in accordance with their
freely expressed will and desire, without any distinction as to race,
creed or colour, in order to enable them to enjoy complete inde-
pendence and freedom.
6. Any attempt aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national
unity and the territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with
… the [UN] Charter. …
7. All States shall observe faithfully and strictly the provisions of the
[UN] Charter …, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
the present Declaration on the basis of equality, non-interference in

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 THE HIJAZ
the internal affairs of all States, and respect for the sovereign rights
of all peoples and their territorial integrity.52

  Operative clause 3 of the resolution made clear that references to a

lack of ‘development’, whether political, economic, social, or educa-
tional, could not be employed to justify continued colonialism. As a
result, a great number of newly independent states began to join the
United Nations. Prominent international lawyers such as Thomas
Franck became increasingly optimistic that these new states would
bring with them their own unique traditions and systems, and that this
would diversify international law and international relations as was
understood at that time.53 Balakrishnan Rajagopal, who firmly believed
in the importance of the newly independent states sharing their own
traditions in the international legal community, echoes this same senti-
ment.54 Unfortunately, this new and interesting foray, exploring inter-
national law from different perspectives, never transpired. Such an
exploration would certainly be interesting from the perspective of
Islamic jurisprudence, tracing and analysing the encounters between
the Islamic worldview and international law alongside their evolution,
and including the dynamic assessment and re-examination of the notion
of the Caliphate, which has been used and invoked numerous times in
the twentieth century (and the twenty-first).
  General Assembly Resolutions 1514 and 154155 were viewed by many
as applying only to the colonial context.56 This point is emphasized heav-
ily in the decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Quebec
Secession reference where the option of secession was seen as applying
only against a colonial power or in a situation known as remedial seces-
sion, where a territory of an existing state finds itself the victim of egre-
gious violations of human rights or oppression.57 As discussed, the notion
of secession or external self-determination (as opposed to internal self-
determination, as we shall explain) inevitably clashes with another fun-
damental principle of the international system, namely the protection of
the territorial integrity of existing states. UN GA Resolution 2625,58
which extols the importance of the right to self-determination at length,
introduces the following caveat towards the end:
Nothing in the foregoing paragraphs shall be construed as authorising
or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally

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 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ
or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and
independent states conducting themselves in compliance with the prin-
ciple of equal rights and self-determination of peoples … and thus
possessed of a government representing the whole people belonging to
the territory without distinction as to race, creed or colour.’
  This has been used by Canada and many other states to advance the
idea that the space and scope for self-determination, especially in cases
of secession, is a very narrow one.
  It is worth noticing that there is a new development regarding self-
determination.59 This can be observed only in relation to the indige-
nous people, who enjoy significant entitlements of self-governance in
relation to matters connected with their lands, beliefs, and economic
and cultural development. What is more, their right to autonomy or
self-governance was confirmed by the UN Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples.60 Even if restricted now only to indigenous
people, such an understanding of self-determination is very promising
for further development and application of the principle of self-deter-
mination. Effectively, this argument could perhaps be extended to The
Hijaz’s right to the economic and financial gains flowing from the
economic activity of pilgrims.
  Overall, to conclude this point, solving The Hijaz Question requires
arguing, discussing and reinterpreting the application of inter-temporal
law. So can The Hijaz secede under international law? The core argu-
ment of this thesis is that it is not important. Through good Islamic
governance, genuine cooperation, creative integration, and consolida-
tion of mutually beneficial spheres, Saudi Arabia, The Hijaz, their
immediate neighbours in the Arabian Peninsula and the greater Middle
East, as well as the broader international community, would benefit.
What the legal treatment above has shown is that a very different legal
framework existed in the 1920s, one which had many limitations,
grave difficulties when it came to international community action, and,
especially, enforcement. The nascent international law of the 1920s was
more of an instrument in the hands of the powerful than a shield for
the protection of states, peoples, and communities. This stark contrast
facilitated by the discussion on the evolution of some pivotal areas of
international law bridges the nearly half a century of evolution in inter-
national law since the seminal events that changed the structure of the

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Arabian Peninsula and largely shaped the present-day Middle East. It
can help us understand how ‘misinterpreting’ international law and key
legal concepts can lead to dangerous traps.

The ‘Self-Determination Trap’

In discussing the classical right to self-determination, Weller quotes
Judge Dillard in the Western Sahara case: ‘It is for the people to deter-
mine the destiny of the territory and not the territory the destiny of
the people.’ Weller observes that ‘there has rarely been a judicial pro-
nouncement more dangerously mistaken than this one’.61
  The right to self-determination is often seen as a move away from a
state-centred view of international law, although ironically it has also
determined the manner in which a greater number of states have come
into existence. Weller observes that ‘the legitimacy of its [the interna-
tional order’s] most basic building block, the “sovereign” state, is
derived from the assumption that this state is nothing more than a
machine to form and implement the aggregated common will of its
people’.62 This assumption is advanced in order to justify the proposi-
tion that an ostensibly state-oriented system in actuality introduces a
democratic impulse in international law. Weller is remonstrative of this
sort of conventional wisdom, which contains far more convention than
it does wisdom. In Weller’s assessment, self-determination serves to
disenfranchise the very people it purports to enfranchise.63 He states
that this process of disenfranchisement has five elements that together
make up the ‘self-determination’ trap:
1) How are we to resolve the inevitable opposition between self-
determination and a state’s interest in maintaining its territorial
integrity?
2) How are we to define the types of ‘peoples’ who are entitled to
exercise this right?
3) If a ‘people’ is designated a right holder, does their right trump
previously existing territorial definitions, or is it exercised within
their confines?
4) Is the implementation of the right to self-determination a continu-
ous process or a singular event?

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5) What modalities should be used to achieving self-determination
(for example, a referendum)?64
  Weller’s elucidations of the tensions within the doctrine of self-
determination are, for the most part, well founded. The case of East
Timor may have provided a precedent for how to escape Weller’s fifth
trap. The New York Accords, which were conceived as the solution to
the question of East Timor in 1999, comprised three separate agree-
ments: (1) a ‘general agreement’ between Portugal and Indonesia
whereby the UN Secretary General would conduct a popular consulta-
tion in East Timor to determine whether the East Timorese demanded
secession; (2) a ‘security agreement’ that dictated the demilitarization
of East Timor by the Indonesian security forces, thereby allowing the
East Timorese to exercise the terms of the popular consultation with-
out intimidation; and finally (3) a ‘modalities agreement’ that regulated
operational issues such as the date of the ballot, the question to be put
to the voters, and so on.65 The New York Accords do provide at least a
rough and potentially amenable solution to Weller’s fifth ‘trap’. They
also provide an outline as to how new states may come into existence
both procedurally and substantively, although each case, ultimately, has
its own features. The content of the right of self-determination, there-
fore, becomes less ad hoc and indeterminate.
  Thus it can be observed that a narrow application of self-determina-
tion to the cases connected with the colonial context is questioned not
only by scholars, but also by the practice of the international commu-
nity.66 As Weller highlights, such a narrow understanding has led to
situations in which
[self-determination] appears to offer a promise of independence to
populations. However, governments have ensured that this promise is a
hollow one. Naturally, the system has been rigged to ensure that central
governments will prevail in self-determination conflicts. Over 60 years
after the establishment of the post-Second World War international sys-
tem, self-determination conflicts have remained endemic. It has become
clear that this system is not likely to generate the peace and stability it is
meant to achieve. By privileging stability over ‘justice’ (at least as seen
by those struggling for ‘liberation’), peace has been sacrificed.67
  Such a trap should be avoided under international law, and a reason-
able solution offered. It may be that there is a possibility to escape that

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trap by means of a broader understanding and application of the self-
determination principle. As argued by the doctrine, two ends to the
spectrum could be considered: (a) internally, within states, where new
forms of co-governance should be promoted; and (b) externally,
where, in cases where all other options and solutions have been
exhausted or cast off, the right to secede should not be ruled out.68

The Involuntary Extinction of States vs. their Creation

The question has arisen as to whether the duty exists to recognize a
state once it meets the Montevideo requirements, which as we have
noted have become an accepted part of international law. Can there be
a duty to recognize states that possess territory, have defined borders
(whether contiguous or not), have a population, and are able to enter
into relations with other states? Hersch Lauterpacht argued the point
in his book Recognition in International Law and generally rejected it.
Crawford calls this ‘the empirical question’.69 A corollary question is
whether or not states have a legal ‘right to exist’, especially in the post-
war, UN order. While many states have formed from larger federa-
tions, which either were previously incorporated into existing states or
else have split and re-unified, there exist three circumstances in which
states have involuntarily been extinguished in the post-war era. The
three cases are those of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN),
the Republic of Rhodesia, and Yugoslavia.70
  The case of the DRVN bears some similarity to the case of The
Hijaz. The DRVN’s communist ideology meant that the Truman
Doctrine committed the United States to assist the Republic of
Vietnam (RVN) against it.71 The RVN had additionally requested assis-
tance from the United Nations under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
The RVN was then forcibly integrated into the DRVN in 1975 (result-
ing in the new Socialist Republic of Vietnam), which would indicate a
prima facie violation of the principles of the equal sovereignty of
nations. In the case of The Hijaz, it was the Kingdom of Najd that was
the aggressor state. Both the Kingdom of Hijaz and the RVN were seen
as the state equivalents of persona non grata and were involuntarily
extinguished as a result.72
  The case of Rhodesia was one where a unilateral declaration of inde-
pendence (UDI) from the UK was declared, but not recognized owing

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to the principle of non-recognition without majority rule in former
colonial states. The UDI was viewed as illegal and as a result was not
recognized by the UN member states, and sanctions were imposed.
This is interesting when compared to the UDI of Kosovo, which was
the subject of an Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice
in 2008. The ICJ ruled that UDIs in and of themselves are not illegal.73
The Kosovo UDI and the subsequent ICJ Advisory Opinion had the
effect of emboldening Russia to declare that it would assist Abkhazia
and Southern Ossetia in securing their independence from Georgia. As
a result, the contemporary status of international law in relation to the
role of recognition viz-à-viz the declaratory and constitutive theories
is hazy and amorphous; it would appear that states oscillate between
the two theories, depending on national and regional interests.

The Right to Secession by Agreement: Czechoslovakia and Quebec

Weller and Crawford’s assessments are made in relation to the ‘prob-
lematic’ cases of self-determination.74 Christian Tomuschat claims that
structural tensions in relation to effectiveness most often manifest
themselves in those cases where pressure stems from outside actors as
opposed to the people within the state, or some subset thereof.75
Tomuschat uses the example of the disintegration of Czechoslovakia as
an illustration of this point.76 He insists that a distinction must be made
between the peaceful dissolution of a state where the relevant groups
intend on pursuing separate paths and the more problematic cases
where disputing and competing factions of loyalists and separatists
emerge. It is the latter cases that present the bigger challenge to inter-
national law.77
  The dissolution of the Czechoslovak state followed a trajectory of
decentralization and federation that culminated in the dissolution of the
state after the Slovak government adopted a resolution declaring its
independence. While the Slovakian declaration invoked the right to self-
determination after a ‘thousand year struggle of the Slovak nation’,78
matters were resolved by a series of political concessions that deter-
mined legal questions surrounding frontiers, succession, currency, and
so on. The case of Czechoslovakia illustrates the declaratory theory of
statehood, where international law is merely a legal imprimatur to a fait

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accompli rather than what sets out the conditions for the emergence of
new states in the international order. It does not illustrate the disenfran-
chising effect described by Weller, nor does it illustrate the problem
surrounding the empirical question posed by Crawford.
  In this regard, the question of the secession of Quebec was referred
to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1998. It was a landmark case,
inasmuch as it sought to answer the question of secession under both
domestic and international law—potentially creating a maelstrom of
legal conflicts in the process. In its discussion of the right to self-deter-
mination under international law, the court highlighted the arguments
raised by Weller’s self-determination trap, namely that the ‘right’ of
self-determination is virtually unenforceable when juxtaposed with the
‘right’ of states to territorial integrity. In its judgment, the court deter-
mined that ‘International law contains neither a right of unilateral
secession nor the explicit denial of such right’.79 The court availed itself
of a ‘values’ loophole in the sense that international law articulates both
a right to self-determination and a right to territorial integrity without
providing any formula as to how these rights are weighted in relation
to one another. Unsurprisingly, the Court placed much of its emphasis
on the right to territorial integrity. So, considering the fundamental
importance of the right to territorial integrity, ‘external self-determi-
nation arises in only the most extreme of cases and even then, under
carefully defined circumstances’.80 The extreme cases envisaged by the
court would include ‘colonial peoples breaking away from an imperial
power’81 or ‘where a people are subjected to alien subjugation’.82
  The court glossed over the issue of determining whether the popu-
lation of Quebec constitutes a ‘people’ in the context of the right to
self-determination, which is rendered moot by the aforementioned
points. The judgment demonstrates how one of the few rights of peo-
ples under international law will be interpreted, constructed, and
adjudicated in a domestic legal system. In other words, a state organ’s
exegesis of international law will more often than not favour state
interests—which brings us a step closer to answering Crawford’s
empirical question. This also has an important political strategy impli-
cation; it is probably to the state’s advantage to take initiative in this
realm and drive the process, rather than allow for the problems to
escalate. If the state is ahead of the events, it can advantageously shape

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the context and better position from an international law perspective:
an important aspect to consider in the case of The Hijaz.

Lessons from Scotland

The case of Scotland creates an interesting precedent. The UK govern-
ment concluded the Edinburgh Agreement with the government of
Scotland, whereby authority to pass legislation for a Scottish referen-
dum on independence was passed to the Scottish parliament under
section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998. In particular, paragraph 30 of the
Memorandum of Agreement stated that both governments
look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive
and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to con-
tinue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome,
whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the
rest of the United Kingdom.
  The Edinburgh Agreement is significant for two specific reasons.
Firstly, it gave political recognition to the possibility that Scotland
might become an independent state. Secondly, it recognized that the
question of Scottish secession could be validly entertained by the
people of Scotland, and that the UK and Scottish governments would
abide by the outcome.
  The Edinburgh Agreement recognized self-determination as a mat-
ter of both process and substance. Both procedural and substantive
elements must be present if the right is to have any meaning at all. At
its core, the right of self-determination is essentially the right to a
specific process; it can be framed as the right of a people ‘to determine
their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cul-
tural development’.83 The freer the choice, the greater the chances that
self-determination as a process will be vindicated in a given case.
Although the term ‘free choice’ is not precisely defined, Drew claims
that in order for the term to be meaningful, ‘the designation “free”
must relate to both the range of choices offered and the conditions under
which the choice was to be exercised’.84 In terms of range, the 1960
UN General Assembly Resolution 1541 provided three options: inde-
pendent statehood, free association, or integration with an indepen-
dent state.85 General Assembly Resolution 2625 reiterated these and

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added a fourth, open-ended possibility: ‘the emergence into any other
political status freely determined by the people’. The process set out in
the Edinburgh Agreement was a single-question referendum on seces-
sion. This was a significant departure from the 2009 White Paper on
the proposed referendum bill, which contained four options.86
  In addition to the right of self-determination as a process, the right
must also guarantee some substantive benefit. A non-exhaustive list of
what that benefit might be could contain the following substantive
entitlements:
(i)            the right to exist demographically and territorially as a people;
(ii)       the right to territorial integrity;
(iii) the right to permanent sovereignty over natural resources;
(iv)  the right to cultural integrity and development;
(v)  the right to economic and social development.87
  In the case of Scotland, the substantive right in question was seces-
sion from the United Kingdom. However, despite the many polls and
surveys, it is impossible to ascertain, retrospectively, whether the
Scottish people would have preferred some other option short of
secession, such as one of the alternatives contained in the 2009 White
Paper. In the political argumentation before the ballot, the UK govern-
ment promised to grant ‘devolution max’ to the Scottish government,
which was interpreted as wide-ranging fiscal powers. Nevertheless, the
definition of the process necessarily dictated the substantive content of
the right, which inextricably linked process and substance. Further­
more, the Edinburgh Agreement reproduced the structural bias within
international law that privileges procedural requirements over substan-
tive principles.88 The case of Scotland potentially sets a precedent as to
how states should deal with secessionary self-determination.89 If states
follow the lead of the United Kingdom, it is possible that a valuable
custom will emerge at some point in the future.
  The right to secession as a possible solution to the self-determina-
tion trap comes with a caveat—that there is an acceptance by the
central government, or at least good will to reach such an agree-
ment. Aforementioned cases, especially that of Czechoslovakia,
should serve as good examples and of how compromise can be
reached by peaceful means.90

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Escaping the Self-Determination Trap in the Case of Hijaz
What kind of solution can be offered under international law for com-
munities and states faced with intractable disputes over self-determi-
nation? And what response does international law offer for those who
are denied their rights simply because they do not fit within the narrow
and obsolete understanding of self-determination? Do they have any
reasonable recourse, or do they find themselves within the self-deter-
mination trap? Can a state still claim a monopoly on legitimate violence
if it denies its own people any political means of settling disputes?91
  Unfortunately, self-determination, if applied in its traditional sense,
offers a contested solution at best. The fine words about the rights of
the people and great expectations of communities for self-determina-
tion butter no parsnips because most examples do not sensu stricto fulfil
the requirement of the United Nations’ ‘post-colonial’ test. These com-
munities are inspired by the self-determination promise, only to find
that they cannot rely upon it in their particular case. As their hunger
for self-determination has not been satisfied, they may turn to drastic
solutions. In such such scenarios, they are faced with a long and bitter
struggle against the odds, as a state will have on its side the powerful
principle of territorial integrity under international law, together with
the predominance of force.
  International scholars, however, advocate finding other solutions
to that problem. Two approaches have been recognized; the first is
termed external self-determination, and the second internal self-
determination.
  The narrow application of self-determination, arising out of colonial
contexts, leaves it inapplicable to most contemporary problems. It is
widely observed that the principle extends well beyond the former
European colonies. Weller has further added that self-determination
has different layers of meaning, and that the principle appears variously
as an individual human right, a right of members of groups and groups
themselves, and a right of indigenous peoples. He concludes that, as a
consequence, the principle of self-determination takes on different
meanings and legal consequences in different contexts.92 However, it is
generally accepted that the principle has external and internal
dimensions.93 Cassese noted the two aspects and discussed their legal
relevance under international law.94 Firstly, granting internal self-

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determination to racial groups persecuted by their central government
has become customary international law (supported by state practice
in the UN from the 1970s).95 Secondly, however, he also observed that
in the case of the right and the possibility for racial groups to secede,
it is too early to firmly state that a customary rule of international law
has emerged.
  In general terms, the right to external self-determination can be
understood as the freedom to decide the external character of the
state. UNESCO experts have applied the definition of external self-
determination, also referred to as full self-determination, which is ‘the
right to decide on the political status of people and their place in the
international community in relation to other states, including the right
to separate from the existing state of which the group concerned is a
part, and to set up a new independent state’.96
  One of the ‘remedies’ offered by international law for The Hijaz
would be so-called remedial secession or supervised independence—
such as the Quebec secession.97 This is not an ultimate kind of solution
but rather a set of conditions in which a people may have a right to
secede. It is unlikely however that such conditions would be acceptable
to either the Saudi government or the Islamic community. In such a
scenario, it is assumed that the central government of Saudi Arabia
would be uncompromising towards any court or political proposal to
change, even slightly, the status quo if groups in The Hijaz, or interna-
tionally, began to advocate for a change in status. Furthermore, it is a
fair assumption that the two sides would find very little room for nego-
tiating a compromise in their respective positions.
  As history demonstrates, even if a Hijazi group began calling for
nothing more than greater political participation, such a call could esca-
late quickly towards demands for a national liberation.98 Conventional
wisdom dictated that the Saudi government would not offer any accept-
able compromises, but instead take measures to bring the situation
under control, with any further Hijazi drive for greater autonomy lead-
ing only to civil unrest. In times of unrest, the voices embraced by the
masses tend to be the loudest and most extreme ones. More oppression
and force would be used to control the situation, which would only fuel
more opposition and ever more radical demands. International law
would look to intervene in the following two circumstances: firstly, if

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the two sides become deadlocked; or, secondly, in the case of brutal
suppression and human rights violations by government agencies. In
such scenarios, the possibility of invoking a right to external self-deter-
mination would come about. At present, the conditions for remedial
self-determination in The Hijaz are not met.
  The right to remedial secession is based on the so-called reversed
reading of the ‘safeguard clause’.99 However, the roots of that idea can
be traced back even further. The Commission of Rapporteurs in the
Aaland Islands case stated the following:
What reasons would there be for allowing a minority to separate itself
from the state to which it is united, if this state gives it the guarantees
which it is within its rights in demanding, for the preservation of its
social, ethnical or religious character? Such indulgence, apart from
every political consideration, would be supremely unjust to the state
prepared to make these concessions. The separation of a minority from
the state of which it forms a part and its incorporation in another state
can only be considered as an altogether exceptional solution, a last
resort when the state lacks either the will or the power to enact and
apply just and effective guarantees.100
  The ‘safeguard clause’ was first articulated in principle 5, paragraph
7 of the Declaration on Principles of International Law, adopted by the
UN General Assembly on 24 October 1970, where it was stated that:
 

Nothing in the foregoing paragraphs shall be construed as authorising

or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally
or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and
independent states conducting themselves in compliance with the prin-
ciple of equal rights and self-determination of peoples as described
above and thus possessed of a government representing the whole
people belonging to the territory without distinction as to race, creed
or colour.101
  It should be noted that this stipulation was reaffirmed, with only
minor changes, in 1993 in The Vienna Declaration and Programme of
Action.102 As Jure Vidmar stated:
A reversed reading of the ‘safeguard clause’ might also imply an exter-
nal dimension of this right. Indeed, it could be interpreted that a state
which does not have a government that represents ‘the whole people
belonging to the territory without distinction as to race, creed or
colour’ may, possibly, not have a right to avail itself of the principle of

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territorial integrity. In other words, in such circumstances, external
self-determination may be legitimised.103
  Does this mean that a government whose authority is not validated
by an electoral process per se could breach the right to self-determina-
tion?104 And following such an assumption, does it mean that such a
government cannot avail itself of the principle of territorial integrity?
The answer is in the negative, as was explained earlier. It should be
noted, however, that such questions are in fact raised and such a prob-
lem exists; Vidmar stating105 that the contemporary practice of states
(with this view being shared by the UN organs) affirms that the absence
of a democratic political system does not lead to a breach of the right
of self-determination. As an example, the case of Kuwait can be
invoked, when the Security Council in Resolution 661106 referred to
the government of Kuwait as ‘the legitimate government of Kuwait’,
despite its human rights violations and lack of democratic practices.107
Therefore, the absence of a democratic political system is not an auto-
matic qualifier for remedial secession.
  However, the situation is different when other factors are also at
play. As was stated by the court in the Quebec case,108 ‘a right to
external self-determination [which in this case potentially takes the
form of the assertion of a right to unilateral secession] arises in only
the most extreme of cases and, even then, under carefully defined
circumstances’.109 The court specified that ‘the other clear case where
a right to external self-determination accrues is where a people are
subject to alien subjugation, domination or exploitation outside a
colonial context. This recognition finds its roots in the Declaration on
Friendly Relations.’110
  Remedial secession is not fully and firmly accepted in the academic
literature, due in part to the fact that it creates a breach in the principle
of territorial integrity. It has to be treated as an exception, and, as
already stated, applied only in extreme situations. Then again, more
academics support its legal existence,111 and at least acknowledge its
influence over the actions of states.112
  The other alternative form of remedial secession would be some-
thing connected to remedial succession called ‘supervised indepen-
dence’.113 As explained by Weller, the new state would trade interna-
tional recognition of statehood for commitments and guarantees, such

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as the protection of human and minority rights, abandonment of fur-
ther territorial claims, or accepted international supervisory mecha-
nisms. That possibility was treated as a hypothetical one, until the
recent case of Kosovo’s independence.114
  Both of these hypothetical situations—remedial secession and
supervised independence—depend heavily on two factors: firstly, the
internal dimension, namely the attitude of the central government and
its reaction to claims for independence; secondly, the concern and the
legal actions of the international community regarding the ensuing
crisis. There is a co-dependence between the first and the second fac-
tors. The more violent and oppressive the reaction of the central gov-
ernment, the more international attention it would attract. And
undoubtedly, the international community nowadays is more eager to
get involved to stop human rights violations, both under the UN sys-
tem and beyond it through civil society, when UN efforts are impeded.
It is difficult to predict the exact reaction(s) of the international com-
munity or the UN in the case of The Hijaz, because it is always depen-
dent on non-legal factors, such as public sympathy, Islamic global reac-
tions, and the particular interests of each state in the region.
  Unfortunately, the conclusion is that only human suffering and
atrocities might provoke the attention of the international community
and elevate claims of political participation to the international level,
but this is not something that can be depended upon, as the recent
example of Darfur makes clear.

Internal Self-Determination
The principle of self-determination has a ‘core of reasonable certainty’
that consists of ‘the right of a community that has a distinct character
to have this character reflected in the institutions of government under
which it lives’.115 The right to ‘internal self-determination’ can be
interpreted as the freedom of peoples to reach a popular consensus, or
a right to political participation and choice of political system within
the state.116 Effectively, internal self-determination, which is under-
stood as participatory democracy, is implemented inside the boundar-
ies of an existing state. Therefore, it does not affect the territorial
integrity of the state. UNESCO experts applied the following defini-
tion of internal self-determination:

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By internal self-determination is meant participatory democracy: the
right to decide the form of government and the identity of rulers by
the whole population of a state and the right of a population group
within the state to participate in decision making at the state level.
Internal self-determination can also mean the right to exercise cultural,
linguistic, religious or (territorial) political autonomy within the
boundaries of the existing state.117
  Cassese considered the right to ‘internal self-determination’ as the
‘right to authentic self-government, which is the right of a people
really and freely to choose its own political and economic regime’.118
Therefore, internal self-determination can be viewed as an expression
of the demand for greater political autonomy within the state.
  Lack of internal self-determination may raise the question of a gov-
ernment’s legitimacy. The right of peoples to self-determination is
accompanied by a right to enjoy some form or degree of democratic
governance: a ‘democratic entitlement’; and its absence gives rise to a
‘democratic deficit’.119 However, Franck’s ‘entitlement’ to democracy
does not automatically mean that its fulfilment can be only achieved by
regime change. Every country has a right to choose its own form of
government. The ‘deliberative democracy’ idea presented by Feldman
can be pursued within a wide variety of political and constitutional
structures.120 One can consider limitations or a deliberative process
relating to decision making in areas such as those relating to the Holy
Places or their defence through the support of the international com-
munity. In other words, one might argue that The Hijaz, and by exten-
sion Islam, could be more secure (on many levels), and more prosper-
ous, if it had greater capacity to determine its governance within an
‘increased autonomy sphere’, to manage affairs such as inclusive and
financially optimal administration of the pilgrimage, protection of the
Holy Sites, and so forth. Moreover, the case could be made that there
is space to attain greater security through a more autonomous interna-
tional status for the Holy Sites, which could imply a greater commit-
ment of the broader international community to protect and respect
them. In a way, such an arrangement and framework would be remi-
niscent of the Vatican and the Lateran treaties, with The Hijaz coming
to fill the ‘seat of Islam’ in multilateral fora.
  External self-determination and the hypothetical undesirable sce-
narios described above assume that the position of the government of

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Saudi Arabia would be uncompromising towards any proposal to
increase political participation. In the case of internal self-determina-
tion, the other possibility recognized by scholars as a possible solution
to escape the self-determination trap, the presumption is different. Such
futuristic ideas provide various possibilities for finding acceptable solu-
tions, not merely in The Hijaz, but also for the wider Saudi Arabian
state. Those possibilities would require, as a minimum, an acceptance by
the central government that the people of The Hijaz would have some
form of regional self-government, of the type that is part of most coun-
tries’ normal political make-up. It has to be noted once again that any
possible solution depends heavily on Riyadh’s willingness to acknowl-
edge the fact that The Hijaz has legitimate aspirations, based partly on
its history, and partly on its supranational role in the wider Islamic
world. It also presupposes that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will appre-
ciate the extensive potential opportunities in the Arabian Peninsula that
this would open up. The Hijaz has a de facto unique position in the
global movement of pilgrims, its paramount position within Islam, and
the potential to initiate a much-needed regional and global dialogue
with Islam’s founding values. For the region it would be a move towards
intergration, not politics, and international peace and prosperity. For
the world, it would provide a unique opportunity to better understand
the second-largest and the fastest-growing religion, with its unique his-
tory, tradition, and universal values. Riyadh is presented with the
opportunity to emerge as the driving force of Islamic integration as well
as inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue.

Autonomy
The extent of territorial autonomy granted can vary considerably.
There can be a delegation of most of the powers from the central gov-
ernment to the autonomous entity—a form of ‘devolution max’—or
it can be limited to a few restricted competencies. There is therefore a
wide range of possible outcomes in a negotiation between a state and a
sub-state entity. To return to the case of The Hijaz, a grant of autonomy
could be an obvious gain for the region, but also for the central govern-
ment. As Heintze duly notes, autonomy can be perceived as an instru-
ment of conflict resolution between the demands of a group for more
independence and the rights of the state to territorial integrity.

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 THE HIJAZ
Autonomy has the capability to satisfy the aspirations of different
groups within the state to a degree of political power, while preserving
the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the state.121 The Saudi state,
by delegating some of its powers, would not only make it harder for
extreme jihadi movements to argue that they are fighting to liberate the
Holy Lands, but it would also strengthen the trends for closer coopera-
tion between The Hijaz and the central government. Autonomy does
not necessarily mean the delegation of sensitive powers by the central
government; it may be the case that aspirations would be met by a
measure of self-governance on the economic level. This is, in any case,
one of the most important dimensions of the right of self-determina-
tion, as was highlighted in Resolution 1514. And central governments
are more prone to delegate economic governance, especially if it is
beneficial for both parties.
  In the case of The Hijaz, one justification for the delegation of pow-
ers and greater autonomy is the right to make a pilgrimage to The
Hijaz, which is one of the five pillars of Islam. This right, the Hajj,
continues to strengthen international attention towards The Hijaz for
Muslims around the world. Reports show that over 2 million people
attended Hajj in 2015. Such large numbers of annual pilgrims inevita-
bly have a significant impact on the international legal and security
aspects of that that territory. Although it is difficult to access full and
uncontested official records detailing the number and names of vic-
tims, press organizations report that the pilgrimage has been the scene
of many tragedies over the past few decades. This has included a riot in
July 1987; a bombing in July 1989; a major stampede in July 1990,
killing approximately 1,500 people; other stampedes in the stoning of
the devil area in 1994, 1998, 2003, 2004, and 2006, reportedly killing
hundreds of people; a fire in 1997, which reportedly burned thousands
of tents and killed over 300 people; and, most recently, a reported
crane crash and stampede in 2015 that killed an unconfirmed number
of pilgrims.122
  Given the rising ambitions of radical militant Islam, when looking at
examples of violent secessionisms around the world, some argue that
autonomy seems to be a desirable and peaceful solution.123 Within
Europe, there are indeed several positive examples: the Aaland Islands,
the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Madeira and the Azores, the German

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community in Belgium, or Italy’s regions with special autonomy stat-
utes such as South Tyrol, the Spanish regions, and Scotland. In some of
these examples, such as Catalonia or Scotland, autonomy is not
enough, and a struggle for greater or full independence continues. Be
that as it may, this is not the case for all autonomous regions. Even in
such extreme examples, it has to be highlighted that the idea of inde-
pendence is promoted through some sort of democratic means and
through civilized discourse with central governments, without neces-
sarily resorting to violence.
  Thomas Benedikter, in his survey of European self-government,
highlighted the fact that:
the denial of autonomy has provoked some critical escalation of minor-
ity conflicts throughout the history of the last century, leading fre-
quently to claims for independence and sometimes to violent resistance
(the Basque Country, Northern Ireland, South Tyrol, Albanians in
Macedonia, Corsica) and factual secession (Albanians in Kosovo,
Russians in Transnistria, Abkhazians and South Ossetians in Georgia,
Turks in Cyprus, Chechnyans in Russia). On the other hand, establish-
ing territorial autonomy has enabled conflicting parties, central states,
and national minorities or smaller peoples to find a compromise by
power sharing on their territory. Autonomy could bring about both—
maintain territorial integrity and grant the minorities a high degree of
‘internal self-determination’.124
  In the same hypothetical spirit, the acceptance of autonomy for The
Hijaz does not mean that Saudi Arabia would have to offer similar rights
to its other regions. Autonomy may be offered only to one part of its
territory. This situation is known in international law as ‘asymmetrical
autonomy’.125 The special status of an autonomous community does
not change the centralist state structure.126
  A precisely shaped and carefully deliberated autonomy may even
strengthen the position of the central government. External aspirations
and internal passions may function within a legal system, strengthening
its legitimacy and claim, and simultaneously closing the space for anti-
system and extremist solutions. On the other hand, and more impor-
tantly, the autonomous status of the region is not in opposition to, but
may even strengthen, the right of territorial integrity of the state.127 It
is not uncommon for the granting of autonomy to be accompanied by

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a solemn and legally entrenched commitment to territorial unity. The
state is therefore assured of its rights by stressing its indivisibility.
  The next point regarding territorial autonomy is that central gov-
ernments are often very reluctant to grant it, due to their concern that
it may pave the way for secession in the future. This appears to be
borne out by the case of Scotland, but in many ways this is an anoma-
lous instance. For most of its history, Scotland was independent, and
fought many wars to maintain that status. As mentioned above, in 1603
it was joined in a personal union with England (like The Hijaz and Najd
in 1925), and this political structure was followed by a formal union in
1707, which led to the the United Kingdom of Great Britain (like
Saudi Arabia in 1932). The question of independence became a live
political issue in the 1970s, and has gained support since, most notori-
ously through the imposition of the poll tax in 1989; a marked differ-
ence in political voting patterns that recently resulted in the elimina-
tion of almost all Westminster parties from Scottish constituencies;
and, even more recently, Brexit, where the stark contrast of the vote in
Scotland—62 per cent remain (as opposed to 48 percent remain over-
     

all)—has reignited calls for independence.

  The case of Catalonia also serves as an interesting example. The
autonomy of the province, among other autonomous regions, was con-
firmed in the Spanish constitution in 1978. However, the constitution
also stressed in its second article that ‘the Constitution is based on the
indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation, the common and indivisible
country of all Spaniards; it recognises and guarantees the right to
autonomy of the nationalities and regions of which it is composed, and
solidarity amongst them all’.128 Spanish regions were given relatively
broad autonomy as Autonomous Communities.129 The recent problems
of Catalonia began with the province’s reforms of its autonomous sta-
tus, which, in the view of the Constitutional Court of Spain, were not
compatible with the constitution.130 This was perceived by the Catalan
community as a political judgment undermining their autonomy, and
it led to demands for full independence.131
  A new plan has emerged, known as the National Transition of
Catalonia. The idea is to conduct a referendum to ask the Catalans if
they want to create an independent state; should that be accepted,
Barcelona will negotiate a possible solution with Madrid. The expec-

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 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ
tation of the Catalan people after a prolonged, yet democratic,
struggle with the central government is to gain independence, as
shown by the Catalan Sovereignty Declaration132 issued by the
Catalan parliament. That instrument was first suspended and then
declared void by the Constitutional Court.133 Further, the ‘indepen-
dence’ referendum134 that the Catalan parliament was planning for
9 November 2014 was suspended by the court.135 As this book goes
 

to print, the Catalonian situation has evolved into an open crisis. The
regional government proclaimed and held an independence referen-
dum on 1 October 2017. The Spanish Constitutional Court and the
 

national government had tried to stop it on the grounds of illegal-

ity.136 Turbulence and violence ensued as the regional government
went ahead with the referendum, and the courts and civil enforce-
ment were operating under instructions to block and prevent these
processes. In spite of the efforts to supress the referendum, over 2
million people voted, resulting in a 92 per cent vote in favour of
   

independence. On 27 October 2017 the Catalan regional parliament

 

voted in favour of independence, with the pro-independence regional

government speaking of the founding of an independent Catalan
republic as a self-governing, sovereign state. Within hours, the
Spanish government moved towards the dissolution of the Catalan
parliament, triggering Article 155 of the Spanish constitution. In
other words, the Spanish government imposed direct rule over the
region, until the new regional government elections in Catalonia,
which were set for 23 December 2017. As discussed, the ‘will of the
 

people’, ‘self-determination’, the expression of a stated desire for a

different path for a people, is a turning point. The case of Catalonia
seems to be yet another powerful reminder of the ‘self-determination
trap’ and the challenges in managing such circumstances.137
  This brief description of the situation in Spain, as with the Supreme
Court of Canada, suggests the power of the state’s legally entrenched
commitment to territorial unity. Even in the case of a very broad
autonomy, with established democratic institutions and discourse, and
with wide popular support (such as that of the Catalans), it remains
very difficult from a legal point of view to gain independence without
an agreement with the central government.138
  Granting autonomy shields the parent state through proper provi-
sions regarding its territorial unity. That possibility is widely recog-

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nized and used by the states granting autonomy. There are a number of
such cases to consider, including: (a) the autonomy of South Tyrol
 

(‘within the political unity of the Italian Republic; one and indivisi-
ble…’); (b) the autonomy of Gaugazia (‘an autonomous territorial unit
 

with a special status as a form of self-determination of the Gaugazes,

which constitutes an integral part of the Republic of Moldova …’);
(c) the autonomy of Hong Kong (‘the Hong Kong Special Admin­
 

istrative Region is an inalienable part of the People’s Republic of

China’); (d) the autonomy of West Papua (‘the integration of the nation
 

must be maintained within the Unitary State of the Republic of

Indonesia …’); and (e) the autonomy of Mindanao (‘within the frame-
 

work of the Constitution and national sovereignty and the territorial

integrity of the Republic of the Philippines …’).139
  In addition, as noted by scholars, the settlement with the central
government may be regarded as an exercise of the right to self-deter-
mination; so that, after its conclusion, the people are no longer entitled
to invoke it, unless it is agreed to otherwise. Put differently, it is a tacti-
cal abandonment of the claim for full independence, in the name of
achieving less autonomy, but with the full cooperation of the central
government.140
  To recapitulate, the gain for Saudi Arabia, with regard to The Hijaz’s
autonomy, would be threefold. Firstly, by granting autonomy, Saudi
Arabia would protect itself from external interference, problems with
the international status of the Holy Places, and possible civil and exter-
nal disturbance within its territory. Furthermore, it would secure itself
from territorial secessionism. Secondly, on the international plane, the
Saudi Arabian position would be strengthened by confirming its role as
protector of the Holy Cities, legitimizing its standing not as an Islamic
movement, but as Holy Territory. Manifesting openness for dialogue
would also improve the perception of Saudi Arabia not only among
other Islamic and Arab states, but also by democratic countries all over
the world. Thirdly, this would finally resolve the historical disputes and
claims over the Holy Cities.141 It would alleviate the deep internal fears
regarding intrusion and the possibility that the claims of neo-medieval-
ist movements might lead to internal unrest, and, at some point, even
an external threat to its borders. Some responsibility would be granted
to the Hijazi special administration, but Saudi Arabia would be obvi-

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 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ
ously responsible for the region on the international level. Now, more
than ever, the custodian of the Two Holy Mosques needs to exercise
twenty-first-century statecraft.

Self-Determination Spectrum Disorder

Marc Weller argues that the principle of self-determination has become
a potent, yet broad, concept which takes effect not only in the colonial
context but also the historical Islamic one. Its dichotomy for external
and internal self-determination is rather uncontested. That dichotomy
is helpful when it comes to evading the self-determination trap, and in
promoting and offering real solutions to resolve conflicts within the
‘Weller spectrum’.142 Its main advantage is highlighting not only the
traditional external manifestation of self-determination, but bringing
the state’s attention to its internal dimension. The latter can be very
useful in promoting and articulating the demand for democratic gov-
ernance within states.
  The Hijaz, however, is intrinsically external, international, integra-
tive and intertwined with the Holy Cities of Islam—Makkah and
Medina. For international law, a whole new question is created, beyond
self-determination. It creates ‘The Hijaz Question’. Although there are
significant dangers to making comparisons across religious doctrine,
the legal status of The Hijaz has some similarities to the Holy See in
Rome and how the Roman Question was ultimately answered. As was
discussed earlier,143 the understanding of the Islamic state was always
connected with The Hijaz and its Holy Cities, not dissimilar to the
understanding of the Holy See as connected with the territorial entities
(apart from 1870–1929)—the Papal States and Vatican City—based in
Rome. The Bishop of Rome—the Pope—and the Holy See, with spiri-
tual jurisdiction and administrative authority over the Catholic Church,
can be compared, historically, to the Caliphate as a central authority of
Islam. The international personality of the Holy See is firmly estab-
lished under international law and accepted as being sui generis, due to
its historical development.144 The last time the term ‘Islamic state’ was
connected with the Holy Cities was during the life of the Kingdom of
Hijaz, when Sharif Hussein assumed the title of caliph. Although
the kingdom was conquered, these claims were not abandoned.
 

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Historically, the claim to Islamic statehood was always, and arguably
will always be, intrinsically connected territorially with the Holy Cities
of Islam.
  The arguments presented regarding the question of autonomy of
The Hijaz, within the meaning of internal self-determination, can be
further enriched by adding one innovative, yet highly controversial,
aspect: internationalization.
  Internationalization of autonomy generally evolves where a regime
that is domestic is partly or fully provided for in an international
instrument.145 As a consequence of that instrument, the state must act
in compliance with its international undertakings.146 Additionally,
where other states are parties to the international instrument that cre-
ates an autonomous regime, those states can be considered a guarantor,
in that they may be ‘entitled—and may even be obligated—to take
legal action in case the instrument serving as the fons et origo of the
autonomy regime is breached’.147
  The internationalization of territories in international law has its
roots in the nineteenth century, when victorious groups of states, after
wars, shared administering authority over territories.148 During the
twentieth century, territories were internationalized under the aus-
pices of the League of Nations (Mandate System) or the United Nations
(Trusteeship System). Also, there is a trend for the internationalization
of territories in post-conflict zones, such as the UN Operation in the
Congo (ONUC); or in states in transition, such as the UN Transitional
Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), the UN Interim Administration
Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), and the UN Transitional Administration
in East Timor (UNTAET). Recent practice shows that via the interna-
tionalization of territories—through, for example, the UN system—
the international community wishes to end conflict or to prevent the
resurgence of armed combat through security management and state
building. Because of that, some authors may perceive the post-conflict
administration as a corollary of intervention.149 Having in mind also the
previous application of internationalization in Mandate and Trusteeship
Systems, it does not come as a surprise that, for some, internationaliza-
tion means the possibility of third states interfering in matters falling
within the domestic realm of the state.
  However, granting autonomy via international instruments should
be distinguished from the above-mentioned examples. International

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 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ
territorial administration has the purpose of responding to a ‘sovereign
problem’ or ‘governance problem’150—when internationalized auton-
omy has nothing in common with post-conflict management, transi-
tional territorial administration, or with decisions imposed by any
international organization or a third state. Here, internationalization
has its source not in the decision of international organizations or other
states, but in the sovereign will of the state, which wishes to grant sui
generis autonomy to one of its regions.
  It goes without saying that the status of The Hijaz—as the site of the
Holy Cities—is unique, and therefore requires a precisely tailored
solution. It is generally accepted that autonomies created by treaties
are regarded to be of sui generis character151—much like The Hijaz. The
special historical and religious status of The Hijaz among other Islamic
states alone—the idea of Islamic self-determination that was discussed
earlier—seems to justify its sui generis character. International law pres-
ents examples of sui generis entities or organizations.152 Although it
might be tempting to try to fit the internationalization of The Hijaz
within the existing categories and precedents, this would be unrealis-
tic, not least because an internationalized status for this particular sui
generis non-state actor would need to take into account its tradition,
religion, heritage, and the will of a quarter of the world’s population.
  The main challenge with the internationalization of a territory is that
it may be perceived as an interference by other states in purely domestic
state matters. However, it should instead be seen as complementary to
the autonomy theory. Nevertheless, there is an argument to be made
that, through the Hajj, The Hijaz is de facto internationalized, as the
Holy Cities host millions of citizens from different states annually. It is,
therefore, in the interest not only of Saudi Arabia but also of other pre-
dominantly Islamic states to protect the Holy Cities and secure the
safety and free movement of their pilgrims. This argument must of
course be balanced against political interests. There is always the danger
that internationalization of The Hijaz could be used to fuel the various
political tensions between Islamic majority states in the region. But
instead of fearing the reaction of other important Islamic actors, such as
Iran, the opportunity for greater cooperation, understanding, and
confidence-building—and even dispute resolution—should be high-
lighted instead, as, on the other hand, arguably, the proposed special

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 THE HIJAZ
internationalization can equally be ‘integrative’, if used constructively
to remedy the looming sectarian ‘Islamic cold war’.
  It is worth noting that the question of the safety of pilgrims has been
raised on an international level. It was indeed the key criterion for
Imam Ibn Saud when discussed during the Conference of the Islamic
World in June 1926 in Makkah,153 and it was raised as the seventh point
of the National Charter promulgated by Hijazis themselves.154 As it will
be presented in Chapter 8, such internationalization may be achieved
via an effective international regional organization.
  There are several points that can be taken away from the preceding
section. As Weller notes, self-determination appears to be a legal norm
which is engineered to disenfranchise despite its emancipatory charac-
ter. As an erga omnes norm,155 which is simultaneously regarded as jus
cogens, the concept is inevitably bound to clash with the competing
norm of territorial integrity.
  A brief analysis of the cases described in this section demonstrates
that internal self-determination is exercised in an easy and perfunctory
manner. Scotland has undertaken one referendum, with the possibility
of further referenda in the future, while Quebec has already had two
referenda. This can be seen as discharging the right of peoples to exer-
cise a free choice or ‘self-determination as process’. ‘External self-
determination’ (or the right to secede) is exercised with less frequency,
and is available only in exceptional circumstances—as the Quebec
Secession Reference accurately demonstrates—such as in the case of
flagrant human rights abuses (remedial secession). However, the case
of Czechoslovakia does demonstrate that external self-determination
is indeed possible. It should be noted that those seeking self-determi-
nation in Asia and Africa have been far less successful than their coun-
terparts in the Western world in the post-colonial era. The desire on
the part of the world’s Great Powers in their own national interests
will often dictate how self-determination struggles will play out.
  For several decades self-determination was considered normatively
amorphous and ambiguous. It was not until the New York Accords in
relation to East Timor that international law was presented with a pro-
cess that could be deployed in other cases. Unfortunately, it is an
option that has not been exercised in the world’s remaining self-deter-
mination hotspots—including Western Sahara, Biafra, Somaliland, and
so forth—a fact which only serves to vindicate Weller’s argument.

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 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ
  Theoretically, self-determination is significant enough that it may
vindicate the use of force in its defence. This is true in theory—as
demonstrated by Article 1(4) of the Additional Protocols to the Four
Geneva Conventions—as well as in practice, as the case of Kuwait
demonstrates. At the same time, it can be argued that the invocation of
self-determination to justify the use of force is no more than a cover
for other ambitions. After all, it was a return to the status quo that was
in achieved in Kuwait. The authoritarian regime remained in place, and
there was no mandate to allow the people of Kuwait to determine their
post-conflict future. Kuwait may be better described as a conflict in
defence of territorial integrity, rather than a defence of the right of the
people of Kuwait to self-determination. The conflict merely served to
entrench national interests, by ensuring that compliant regimes were
not threatened. In this respect, it is similar to the situation in The Hijaz
before the Saudi annexation. Equally, the Gulf War stood as a monu-
ment to the importance placed on the Saudi–Western alliance, which
has been vital to Western interests for almost a century. Additionally,
the Gulf War is merely a part of a long list of conflicts where a legal
norm serves as a casus belli due to its putative importance, only to be
abandoned elsewhere.156
  The antecedent of James Crawford’s empirical question demon-
strates that states will often recognize entities that fall short of the
Montevideo requirements if this is in line with certain national inter-
ests—no matter how ephemeral or ambiguous those interests might
be. In contradistinction to the prohibition on the premature recogni-
tion of states, there have been a number of states that have been rec-
ognized recently that lack at least one of the Montevideo require-
ments. Bosnia (2008) and Palestine (2012) are two such examples. In
the case of the former, it was a symbolic gesture recognizing inter alia
the horrors of the genocide in the Balkans. In the latter case, it is in
the hope of jump-starting a languid peace process that will lead to a
Palestinian state.
  Crawford’s empirical question is potentially more relevant now than
ever before. It suggested that there is some precedent for the proposi-
tion that states may refuse to recognize other states that otherwise fulfil
the required elements of statehood. Rhodesia is a modern example of
this. However, the requirement that states are able to enter into inter-

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 THE HIJAZ
national relations seems to allow states to cloak political non-recogni-
tion as legal doctrine. In other words, if a state can be sufficiently
ostracized from the international community, members of the interna-
tional community will have the requisite legal imprimatur to deny its
existence as a state. Such issues of ostracization and complete rejection
by the international community are pivotal when dealing with entities
such as DA’ISH, a terrorist non-state actor whose core aspiration was
to become a state and establish a Caliphate, through terror, fear,
oppression, dogmatism, absolutism, and an effort to use holy Islamic
symbols to legitimize all this. In such cases, the rejection must be
immediate and unequivocal, and the response immediate and coordi-
nated, between all the responsible members of the international com-
munity—first and foremost, by all the Islamic nations whose sacred
symbols, history, and identity the terrorist group seeks to usurp; and
the Muslim people, who are the first to suffer. It is encouraging that
with the post-2016 diminution of DA’ISH’s territorial influence, it
became clear that any power centres or groups previously aiding the
terrorists, directly or indirectly, distanced themselves further.
  To recapitulate, the classical approach to self-determination—to
restrict its application to the colonial context—failed catastrophically.
Even though inspiring, it is, in most of the cases, inapplicable. The
majority of the conflicts in the world are on an ethno-nationalist basis.
However, the principle of self-determination in the classical under-
standing may be applied to few of them, if any. So, unfortunately, the
great suffering, civilian casualties, and refugees—always the effects of
the ethno-nationalist struggles or wars—may not be addressed,
because in these situations international law supports the state’s terri-
torial integrity and stability.157
  A new jurisprudential understanding and application of self-deter-
mination is emerging. These rules are still far from being recognized as
customary rules of international law, but there is growing support for
them. The first, the ‘remedial secession’ rule discussed above, should
be treated only as a last resort. However, growing expectations of the
internal dimension of self-determination are relevant. On the one
hand, it is still true that it is very difficult to change the territorial
status quo where the parent state does not give its consent. On the
other hand, ‘specific consideration to the interdependence between the

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 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ
right of self-determination and the right to political participation’
should be given.158 There are still no international obligations on the
state to grant autonomy. Nonetheless, it looks as if there is also a grow-
ing acceptance that internal self-determination may play an important
role in escaping the self-determination trap. Jurists and courts are
progressively recognizing the link between the right of self-determina-
tion and political participation. As stated by the Supreme Court of
Canada, the democratically expressed will of the people in favour of
independence puts an obligation on both sides to negotiate a future
arrangement, but does not predetermine an outcome.159 It is simply
because the solution of internal self-determination is the most reason-
able and desirable one, especially when compared to the horror of civil
strife and war. The international community should advocate for such
peaceful solutions more keenly, understanding that it is indeed a spec-
trum. Even without legal obligations, states faced with pressure from
the international community would be more willing to accept and
agree on such a compromise.

— A Special Status Solution: Mount Athos and Hong Kong

There are two special models to consider when reviewing a future
arrangement and status of The Hijaz, especially with regards to interna-
tional protection. These are Mount Athos, a ‘self-governed’ region in
northern Greece that is home to twenty Christian Orthodox monaster-
ies and has an uninterrupted history of over a millennium; and the Special
Administrative Region (SAR) system, especially that of Hong Kong, in
the case of China. Given the religious dimension of The Hijaz, we will
discuss separately in the next section, in greater detail, a number of
important parallels that may be drawn with the case of the Vatican.
  Performing a similar comparative exercise with Mount Athos could
be particularly enlightening. In short, this ‘self-governed’ dimension of
Mount Athos, which however falls within the national sphere, and
keeps the ‘Holy Mountain’ under the umbrella of the Greek state, may
present several answers to The Hijaz Question.160 It has fully demo-
cratic internal processes, efficient management arrangements, and a
strategic management of the pilgrimage and of international visitors,
openness towards inter-faith dialogue, as well as international recogni-

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 THE HIJAZ
tion and respect for its history, status, and role. Wielding religious
authority and politico-economic responsibilities, it also has gravitas and
influence, but no autonomy or independence. It has increased flexibil-
ity, responsibilities, great self-government, and a relationship with the
central government—the Greek state—based on constitutional provi-
sions, clear responsibilities on both sides, and, an understanding of
their mutual boundaries. Internal religious discussions are managed by
the twenty monasteries, through democratic deliberation.161 We will
not expand here further on the Mount Athos system, its monastic life
or its possible emulation, though it could be the topic of subsequent
research and targeted study. The greatest obstacle for the adoption and
adaptation of the Athos system in The Hijaz is the ‘re-institutionaliza-
tion’ of the Two Holy Mosques, the pilgrimage, the re-establishment of
schools of jurisprudence and theology, and the introduction of legal
amendments that allow for a similar form of internal self-determina-
tion. Of course, in the case of The Hijaz, unlike Athos, the region
would be open to women too.
  Another example that can be studied is that of Hong Kong and the
SAR system, which was developed in the run-up to the handover of
Hong Kong to China. Its constitutional foundations are known as the
Basic Law of the Hong Kong SAR, which entered into force in 1997.162
Although the Chinese central government has been steadily tightening
its grip over Hong Kong in the course of the past decade, the model still
has considerable legal relevance, as it seems to have an interesting for-
mula—a ‘one country, two systems’ approach. If one wanted to draw a
parallel with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and The Hijaz, the former
would of course remain united, with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia main-
taining its sovereignty and indivisibility, yet granting The Hijaz and the
Two Holy Mosques greater responsibilities and self-administration
capacities, in order to upgrade their Islamic standing, affirm their reli-
gious authority, and advance their international protection. To be clear,
there is currently no ‘de-colonization’ dimension in the case of The
Hijaz. In contrast to the People’s Republic of China–Hong Kong case,
however, the granting of Hong Kong (or Athos) -style special adminis-
trative status to The Hijaz is in the interest of the central government.
In fact, as we have shown throughout, it is essential for the security and
the prosperity of the Kingdom, and in the state’s best interest, to

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 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ
advance a new, positive, and sustainable system in the region. The Hijaz,
therefore, should be elevated to a special status, within the Kingdom,
the region, and the new emerging international system. As with Hong
Kong, in the case of The Hijaz the Kingdom would remain responsible
for The Hijaz’s foreign affairs and defence, even though the territory
would have a distinct status within leading global international organiza-
tions and fora—starting with the UN. The Hijaz would also need a
 

hybrid model for its economic management in order to have greater

flexibility and independence, but to be self-sufficient without external
dependencies and other challenges. This is particularly key in the case of
The Hijaz, as the special administration bears the majority of the burden
during the annual pilgrimages. The Roman Question and the Lateran
accords offer deep insight in this regard.

— The ‘Christian’ Experience: A Reflection

While it is not possible for The Hijaz to perfectly emulate—historically,
politically, or legally—the experience of the Vatican (the Holy See), there
are a number of interesting comparative historical, religious, and political
points to be considered, potentially leading to unintended answers vis-à-
vis how a possible solution could look, and what added value it could
bring at the international, regional, and local levels.
  It is important to deconstruct the role of the Vatican163 as an inter-
national actor, briefly tracing its historical evolution and rise as an
independent actor in the international system and within the leading
international organizations. Through this analysis we shed light on an
example, stemming from the ‘Christian experience’, beginning with an
excerpt from Jodok Troy, which aptly frames and situates the dia-
chronic role and relevance of the Catholic Church in the international
scene through an international relations lens:
The Catholic Church is the oldest and largest transgovernmental orga-
nization in the world … [it has] always has been engaged in politics, in
various forms of political and social organizations and divisions, frag-
mentation, and defragmentation. Out of this long-term political expe-
rience, the Church perceived the rise of the modern state and the
Westphalian settlement as what it remains to this day: a particular solu-
tion (a state) to a particular problem (a political organization in a frag-
mented society) in a particular period of history. The Church itself, via

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one of its secessionists, Protestantism, extensively contributed to the
evolution of the modern state (Philpott 2000, 2001). Because of its
own experience and institutional memory, the Church displays a
relaxed outlook on the future of international politics in an era of glo-
balization and a changing political landscape.164
  This seems to capture the trans-historical importance of the Catholic
Church in a series of key processes, the historical events and complexi-
ties that are implied here and the differences with The Hijaz’s historical
role. For instance, The Hijaz and the Holy Mosques, as a religious
entity, did not fulfil such a wide-ranging independent function over
time—in other words, they were not involved directly in ‘domestic’
and international politics and conflicts. Nor were they engaged in ‘divi-
sions and fragmentations’; on the contrary, they were the institution
tasked with conflict prevention and with maintaining Muslim unity.
  It is hard to carry out a direct comparison between The Hijaz and
the Vatican—especially from a legal angle.165 Nor does it seem possi-
ble for The Hijaz to emulate the Vatican’s modern experience. The
Vatican, as the paramount reference point within the Christian—and
especially Catholic—faith, has been active in international politics
with variable, yet overall considerable, degrees of autonomy for nearly
seventeen centuries—ever since the Bishop of Rome emerged as a
powerful figure in the resolution of theological matters within the
Roman Empire. Over the course of time, in a journey that was both
complex and deeply religious, but also at times political, strategic, and
contentious, the Vatican established an independent status and
entrenched it through the management of power: spiritual and legal–
religious, but also economic and political influence. If we start with
the acceptance that statehood in modern Europe is deeply associated
with—if not largely a product of—the Treaty of Westphalia, then we
must also recognize that religion (and the Vatican in particular) has
had a powerful role in the evolution of European statehood: for
instance, the role of religion and the Pope in the Holy Roman Empire;
the involvement of the Vatican in relations between different Great
Powers and their sovereigns; and also, ultimately, the complicated
stance of the Vatican in an era of European politico-religious power
struggles, competitions, and wars.
  The struggles were both internal—with the Church often splitting,
the popes multiplying, along with different politico-religious agendas

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and world-views—and external—with support for various competing
monarchs, alliances, financial and political assistance, loans and ‘war
loans’, but also diplomatic and at times even military participation—
either through direct papal forces or mercenary armies. We will not
include here extensive references to the long list of the wars and con-
flicts that involved the popes, the Papal States, and the related institu-
tions.166 A case in point are the Crusades or the so-called (Christian)
‘holy wars’.167 Several of these started directly with the agency of the
Pope himself (such as Innocent III and Urban II). The Crusades
emerged as a central reference point in the history of European politics
and religion. They worked to maximize papal powers and empower the
‘institution’ itself on many levels. The following excerpt from Dana
Munro is telling, and best summarizes the points we have raised in the
last few paragraphs regarding the breadth and complexity that charac-
terized the activity of the popes and papal power, as well as the dynamic
path through which the emergence of the Vatican and the Institution of
the Pope as international actors came to be rooted:
The Pope preached a crusade against his Sicilian kingdom; and this
illustrates another means by which the power of the popes was
enhanced. They repeatedly preached crusades against their temporal
foes and offered to the participants in these wars the same privileges,
spiritual and temporal, which were given to those who went on expedi-
tions against the Moslems. These holy wars were sometimes directed
against monarchs and other rulers, sometimes against cities, at other
times against heretics … or against the heathen [pagans] … of Europe.
These armies played an important part in the history of the thirteenth
century. This century also saw the temporary union of almost all
Christian lands under the authority of the Pope and this was directly
due to the crusades. … The crusades also brought to the Church and
to the Popes an enormous increase in wealth. Crusaders gave freely to
the Church before starting for the East; they also mortgaged or sold
their property to ecclesiastical foundations under conditions very
advantageous to the latter. … Men who had taken the Cross and were
unable to go, purchased exemption from their vow. Taxes for the cru-
sades were frequently collected and handled by the Church. … The
total amount which the Church received through the crusades … was
enormous. Consequently the Popes became much more powerful,
especially through their control over the appointment of the officials
who profited by this wealth.168

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 THE HIJAZ
  If one adds to this the role and importance of the pilgrimage, its
implications for symbolic power, and financial revenues, the exponen-
tial growth of the power of the Vatican becomes easier to relate to. The
same is true for the role of loans as well as trade—especially through
the Papal States until the late nineteenth century.169 Overall, in its
historical evolution, the Vatican has at different times met the full spec-
trum of activities of a full-fledged international actor: in politics, diplo-
macy, trade, and economics; in soft and hard power; exercising sym-
bolic and real or pragmatic authority; exercising from intra-Church, to
local, to regional, to national and international and, ultimately, global
influence; the role of loans and foreign economic ties and dependen-
cies; a long-term involvement in Italian and European politics and
intrigues, Great Power competition, and interests; as well as a global
worldview.170 It is not possible to compare this experience directly to
any other international actor; it is, in many ways, a unique experience,
with its important contributions to global dialogue and peace, espe-
cially after the 1929 Lateran Treaty, and, in particular, after the Second
World War, but also its complex, near two-millennia-long history.
  There are some immediately noticeable similarities with The Hijaz,
in the sense that, for instance, both had a need for autonomous finan-
cial management, as well as some form of autonomous security and
administrative capacities—for the optimal management of the pil-
grimage.171 Also, both regions and entities, in their ‘golden eras’, had
a key role as pan-Islamic and pan-Christian reference points for the
resolution of intra-faith matters, debates, and disputes. Moreover, in
certain periods of global history, the Papal States and the Caliphate
were very important in the spheres of trade, and were reference points
for their regional economies. If, indeed, the Vatican has at times pro-
vided an inclusive umbrella for the Christian faith—and especially for
the (today) 1.2 billion people who identify as Catholics172—The Hijaz
is similarly the key reference point for Islam, and also fulfilled the role
of the core of Caliphates (both literally and with the meaning of pan-
Islamic solidarity). In the past, scholars such as Abdel Raziq and
Sanhuri suggested that if one established common Islamic laws there
would be no need for a Caliphate; today, however, this idea is very
much gone. Islam needs a representative in the international system.
It will help address the crisis within Islam and the greater Middle East;

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 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ
it will help advance greater inter-religious dialogue and understand-
ing; and it will also help accommodate the differences in global state-
hood. If we want to take control of the current ‘crisis of Islam’,173 it is
crucial to accommodate the level of diversity in the UN—which
remains very much a reflection of the European nation-state. A new
arrangement, within the existing framework,174 which would upgrade
the representation of Islam in the leading international fora and the
UN, would be a pivotal step in the direction of a more inclusive and,
ultimately, more stable international order.
  A short examination of the long-term ‘institutionalization’ of the
Vatican helps elucidate the present context and the comparative over-
representation of the ‘Christian’ (and Catholic in particular) faith in the
international system and in a series of international bodies, from the
UN and the European Union to the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).175 If one adds to this picture the over
185 permanent foreign missions (in total) of the Vatican abroad, we are
indeed talking of a form of ‘diplomatic superpower’.176 One cannot but
note the comparative lack of an analogous representative of Islam, of
equal standing, in the international context, and the potentially nega-
tive implications this has for global understanding, dialogue, and inter-
faith cooperation.
  In January 2017 Pope Francis gathered the diplomatic corps accred-
ited to the Vatican to give a speech on the value of—and ways to pur-
sue—security and peace, ‘expressing his heartfelt conviction that every
form of religious expression is called to promote peace, and lamenting
that at times, especially nowadays, the religious experience may be
exploited in the interests of fundamentalism and terrorism’.177 He
specifically framed the contribution of religion and religious leaders in
the following universal terms:
We are dealing with a homicidal madness which misuses God’s name in
order to disseminate death, in a play for domination and power. Hence
I appeal to all religious authorities to join in reaffirming unequivocally
that one can never kill in God’s name. Fundamentalist terrorism is the
fruit of a profound spiritual poverty, and often is linked to significant
social poverty. It can only be fully defeated with the joint contribution
of religious and political leaders. The former are charged with transmit-
ting those religious values which do not separate fear of God from love

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of neighbour. The latter are charged with guaranteeing in the public
forum the right to religious freedom, while acknowledging religion’s
positive and constructive contribution to the building of a civil society
that sees no opposition between social belonging, sanctioned by the
principle of citizenship, and the spiritual dimension of life. Government
leaders are also responsible for ensuring that conditions do not exist that
can serve as fertile terrain for the spread of forms of fundamentalism.
This calls for suitable social policies aimed at combating poverty … and
… a major investment in the areas of education and culture.178
  The Pope’s calls for a pan-religious effort were well grounded, and
very aptly capture the need for greater inter-religious and intercultural
dialogue—culminating in unified efforts. Therefore, arguably, the key
question that again comes to mind is why it remains the case today that
a series of other religions representing great parts of the global popula-
tion do not have an equally loud voice today—at a time when it is so
very sorely needed. In many ways, this is ever so true for Islam, a
religion that, due to the horrific acts of extremists and complex secu-
ritization processes in Western societies which we referred to earlier,
has come to be in part misunderstood and in part a misplaced source
of fear (with Islamophobia being a twenty-first-century reality in many
countries today).
  The key point to raise here is that it will be both sufficient and critical
for The Hijaz to emerge as the representative of all Islam to defuse the
tensions and offer a positive, integrative if not unifying alternate vision
for the wider region and globally. It is also important to provide the
sense, the security of having a reference point, both within Islam and
internationally, for the most optimal navigation of the complex reli-
gious–ideological landscape; in other words, the proverbial ‘dealing with
one telephone number’—the opportunity of having a powerful symbolic
actor able to mediate, prevent, and pre-empt crises and tensions.
  It is crucial to avoid the trap of attributing too much to the amor-
phous (and often ill-defined) enemy of ‘terrorism’. We have to act
proactively and preventatively to diminish the ‘negative space’, to
advance moderate views, to restrict intolerant voices, and to strip radi-
cals and extremists of any claims to ‘Islamic’ legitimacy with which
they try to cloak their horrific acts and dark agendas. For instance, we
have seen how groups and actors have manipulated the idea and the
‘institution of the Caliphate’. A permanent legitimate body with inter-

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 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ
national Muslim representation, and some form of true and legitimate
semi-autonomous Islamic state, recognized by and participating in the
international system, will be enough to discredit any attempts to
exploit Islam and its holiest symbols. It will be a powerful integrative
agent for Islamic nations and societies globally. And, since a form of
official representation of Islam in the UN is important, the participa-
tion of The Hijaz is paramount—to fill the empty, ‘invisible’ seat
between that of the Vatican and of Palestine as a Permanent Observer
non-member state. The Hijaz is uniquely positioned, in every respect,
to fulfil this role—within Islam, within the region, and within the
international system.
  Historically, every system of international collective governance
has—in one way or another—emerged out of a war situation or in its
aftermath. Establishing such a functional, more inclusive, international
arrangement will equip the international community with a better tool
for conflict prevention. Furthermore, the solution for The Hijaz, the
Muslim Holy Lands—Makkah and Medina—will inevitably affect
Jerusalem. In other words, this crucial and much-needed effort could
conceivably catalyse a Jewish, Christian and Muslim solution—an
international set of modalities and regime to manage Jerusalem.
Through a ‘new model’, The Hijaz would emerge as an additional force
for good, a powerful ambassador for peace, tolerance, solidarity, coop-
eration, and moderation.

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 PART III

PRESENT AND FUTURE

 7

GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES
IDEOLOGY AND STATEHOOD

This chapter covers the post-Hijaz evolution of statehood in the Middle

East and Islamic governance after the Second World War. It takes into
account the Cold War context, regional geopolitics, attempts at
regional integration, and challenges to the main states in the region. In
the context of post-war Islamic statehood, the birth and evolution of
the Islamic Republic of Iran is also discussed. The Sunni perspective is
also discussed in relation to the Shi’a, as they evolved over time. The
chapter also discusses the Soviet–Afghan war, the responsibility of the
USA in the internationalization of jihad, and the implications of power
vacuums. The chapter closes with an analysis of the Taliban experience
and statehood ambitions, the rise of al-Qaida—the non-territorial
champion of jihadi terrorism, and DA’ISH, the neo-medieval horror
that shook the world in the 2010s. The chapter’s concluding sections
make reference to the untapped reconciliatory value of The Hijaz, and
pave the way for the discussion of the ideological drivers of militant
Islam that follows in Chapter 8.

A Region at the Crossroads

Turning to the broader picture in the greater Middle East today, the
region seems to be in heightened turmoil. Sectarian tensions have been

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 THE HIJAZ
reignited in the aftermath of the withdrawal of the US forces from the
region and the shortcomings of the Arab Uprisings. The so-called Arab
Spring backfired, and this wave of popular uprisings was either crushed
by the re-assertion of authoritarianism or the countries affected fell
into instability, conflict, and chaos. In parallel, a new geopolitical com-
petition has emerged between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the most power-
ful actors in the region. The tensions and antagonisms have often
gravely hampered regional and international attempts to defeat DA’ISH
and other extremist groups operating in Syria, Iraq,Yemen, Libya, and
other countries undergoing major crises in the region. The Shi’a–Sunni
schism seems to have re-emerged with a vengeance, as armed militias
clash in proxy wars or local power struggles in the epicentres of vio-
lence in the region (especially Yemen and Syria).
  In the Syrian battlefield, broader geostrategic and geopolitical
antagonisms have been unfolding. On the one hand, the crisis has
drawn in the United States and several key European states, who want
to see the removal of Bashar al-Assad, the sitting Syrian president, and
who rushed to recognize the ‘Syrian opposition’, which included a
series of dangerous jihadi militias. On the other hand, one finds
Hezbollah and Iran, who are backing, with strategic Russian military
aid and tactical support, the forces of Bashar al-Assad, and seek to keep
him and his regime in power. Interestingly, post-2016, both sides’ main
claim has been that they are fighting, overall, for the same ‘greater
cause’: the eradication of DA’ISH. What has been complicating the
 

matters further, however, is the role of the Kurdish forces (which are
largely Sunni and principally backed by the Americans). Some of the
fiercest clashes in the Iraq–Syria war theatres have been between pre-
dominantly Kurdish (Peshmerga and YPG/YPJ) forces and
DA’ISH. The Kurds have made decisive gains against DA’ISH, liberat-
 

ing extensive territories in Iraq, but also in Syria, fighting under the
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) banner. Given the diachronic wish for
an autonomous Kurdish state in the region, there can be potentially
significant geopolitical implications in the absence of a just and inclu-
sive peace in Syria. Also, for countries with a high percentage of citi-
zens of Kurdish origin—such as Turkey, where they make up
15–20 per cent of the population—the potential ramifications of an
   

‘autonomous’ or ‘independent’ Kurdish state would be tremendous.1

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
  Moreover, another very worrying issue is the rise in sectarianism,
and, in particular the Sunni–Shi’a dichotomy that underlines the con-
flict in Iraq. The process of ‘de-Baathification’ paved the way for the
resurgence of sectarian tensions in Iraq, as well as, generally, the issue
associated with the removal of governing strongmen (as in Egypt or
Libya), who were keeping sectarian pressures in check. Furthermore,
as discussed above, it is also an issue of geopolitics. The ‘new sectarian-
ism’ can also be viewed from an international relations angle, as repre-
senting the tension between the two major regional powers—Saudi
Arabia and Iran—the Kingdom being the most powerful Sunni Arab
state in the broader Middle East and the Islamic Republic being the
most powerful Shi’ite state and aspiring regional leader. Also, to fur-
ther underline the complexity on the ground, over a hundred armed
militias and groups are warring in Syria alone.2 Extensive spillovers can
also be observed between the warring groups, and especially the jihadi
militias in the region. The solution to this problem has, in effect, three
components. The first requirement is a decisive initiative, spearheaded
by the countries of the region and the international community, to
defeat DA’ISH and eradicate the armed terrorist groups with whom no
negotiated solution can or should be attempted. The second compo-
nent is political: the need for groups willing to hold discussions in
order to reach negotiated ceasefire agreements to come to the table.
The third component is ideo-religious: the need to extinguish the sec-
tarian, religious, ideological, interpretational, and tribal flames which
are turning Syria, Iraq, and Yemen into ashes.
  The prospects for peaceful, diplomatic settlement of these conflicts
seem to be fading as the death toll, the strife, and the collective emo-
tions of anger and fear climax. In this grim context, old and new ter-
rorist groups find fertile ground to recruit, regroup, and re-cast their
bids for statehood or global jihad and terror. Extremists and radicals
form cells in several countries of the region, ready to serve under the
banner of the next expression of the ‘negative space’ and the Faith
Militant. Over 1,200 lives have been claimed by DA’ISH outside Iraq
and Syria,3 with numerous deadly attacks in neighbouring states,
including Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.4 Crucially, the attacks
are not confined to ISIS. There are many DA’ISH-inspired attacks and
 

groups operating in the region and internationally, whilst there is a

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particular spread in Africa (and Asia), with groups such as Boko Haram
in Nigeria, which claimed over 11,800 lives in 778 attacks between
2011 and 2016 alone. Boko Haram declared its support for ISIS in
2015, and has had a record of horrific brutality.5 In Somalia, Harakat
al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, known as al-Shabaab (The Youth), has also
been claiming lives in a domestic jihadi militant insurgency, whilst also
carrying out terrorist attacks—such as a string of hits in Kenya (in
2013, 2015, and 2016).6 Al-Shabaab has known links to al-Qaida and
has been a destabilizing force in the region, targeting among others
Christians and Kenyan soldiers. The penetration of jihadi terrorism is
strong in parts of Asia too, with Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-linked
terrorist organization, and its splinter groups causing major loss of life
in a series of hits in the 2000s as well as DA’ISH-inspired groups in the
2010s, with deadly attacks in Indonesia and the Philippines.7 Overall,
since 9/11 international terrorism—and especially jihadi extrem-
ism—has been at the top of the global security agenda. In 2015 alone,
11,774 terrorist attacks were carried out in 92 countries, resulting in
a total of 28,300 deaths:8 a truly global phenomenon and a deeply
‘common’ challenge to overcome.
  Further to the terrorist attacks—which, as discussed, know no
boundaries—there is also the major issue of the foreign fighters, leav-
ing from Europe, the USA, or Asia to join the war effort in Syria and
Iraq—‘to fight in a holy war, and also to live in a pristine “Islamic
State”’.9 The ‘push factors’ behind these flows are particularly complex,
and vary according to the background and profile of each individual.
Robert Verkaik’s observation that Western ‘foreign fighters’ are often
torn between the horrific violence of DA’ISH (which they are appalled
by) and a deep desire to live a in a ‘Caliphate where they are free to live
real Islamic lives unfettered by Western culture’ is also particularly
telling.10 It provides an interesting insight into the contradictions of the
Western Muslim’s Islamic psyche. According to the UN, over 30,000
people have flocked to Syria and Iraq since 2011 to fight with the
Islamist groups and DA’ISH, posing a great threat to their countries of
origin once they return. According to Politico, the ‘EU countries with
the highest numbers of foreign fighters per head of population were
Belgium, France, Germany, and the UK’.11 The estimated number of
fighters from other countries is also very worrying, with Tunisia com-

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
ing first (over 6,000), Saudi Arabia second (over 2,000), and Russia,
Jordan, and Turkey following closely. Furthermore, between 500 and
1,200 people left Morocco, Lebanon, and Egypt to join DA’ISH in Iraq
and Syria.12 In terms of continents, Asia, Africa, and Europe have seen
‘the most citizens travel to Syria and Iraq, with over 14,000 people
estimated to be in the conflict zone’ from Asia alone.13 This analysis
highlights the truly global challenges posed by the jihadi extremist
threat, and how broad and inclusive the response needs to be. This
phenomenon is drawing in the neighbouring states, the region, and the
Great Powers, but also—through the attacks, the foreign fighters,
online radicalization, and the various DA’ISH or al-Qaida-inspired
global cells—the whole world.
  Equally complex and pressing remains the question of terrorist
financing. In spite of a series of national, regional, and international
efforts, the issue remains a major challenge with intricate dimensions.
In 2016 the US Department of State released a list according to which
Iran was the ‘Top State Sponsor of Terror’.14 For a number of years, in
the late 1990s and until the early 2000s especially, Saudi Arabia steadily
featured high on (if not at the top of) such lists.15 State-sponsored ter-
rorism has been put under greater international scrutiny and pressure
in the post-9/11 context. A series of US-led initiatives, most often in
cooperation with the UK, France, and the EU, have tried to check
terrorist financing and closely monitor suspicious flows. These pres-
sures have inspired regional initiatives—with a series of GCC summit
conclusions adopting measures in this direction. There have also been
efforts led by the USA, the UK, and France to monitor radical ideology
and its impact (including Wahhabism), both in their communities and
in the digital sphere.
  A major issue with terrorist financing specifically, however, is that
many of these flows are concealed—at times disguised as humanitarian
assistance and aid, and in other cases as private donations for charitable
or educational purposes. They are hard to keep track of, and the chan-
nels employed make it difficult to monitor or trace back to an indi-
vidual, a firm, or a state.16 Even though major international initiatives,
such as the UN Convention on Financing Terrorism, have been signed
by over 150 states, the challenge remains pressing. In June 2017,
exactly fifty years after the eruption of the 1967 Six-Day War, the

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 THE HIJAZ
June–Ramadan Crisis broke out in the Peninsula, with Saudi Arabia
leading a GCC blockade against Qatar, on the accusation that it finances
terrorism (especially al-Qaida affiliates) and maintains destabilizing ties
with Islamist groups (including the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and
Hezbollah), along with Iran. This is a very serious crisis, which raises
questions about the viability of the GCC as well as broader geopolitical
issues. For instance, there is the risk that this blockade may indeed push
Qatar closer to Iran. Turkey’s support for Qatar, and growing diplo-
matic ties with Iran, are also important trends to watch closely. The
role of the new US president, Donald Trump, seems to be emerging as
an additional complicating factor in the Gulf and the broader Middle
East; the USA is taking an aggressive stance and generally showing a
readiness to choose sides in the regional antagonisms rather than work
towards much-needed, lasting, and sustainable peace resolutions.
  As we will demonstrate in the following chapter, The Hijaz is a key
part of the solution to several of the above-discussed regional and
international challenges. It can play a decisive part in the efforts against
terrorism and radicalization; it can also fulfil a key role in the diffusion
and mediation of regional tensions, antagonisms, and conflicts, as well
as help put an end to the renewed sectarianism. Its theological, geo-
graphical, and political location gives it a legitimate claim to be the
forum for bringing these groups, actors, and contending ideologies
together. We discussed earlier the issue of foreign fighters flocking
from around the world to join the ranks of DA’ISH, hoping, among
other things, to experience life in a ‘true’ Islamic state.
  Some non-lawyers may even argue that it would be more construc-
tive to elevate the significance of The Hijaz to its ‘original stateliness’—
in other words, above statehood, with its sacred centres as epicentres
of knowledge and influence, in such a manner that entities would be
persuaded by its spiritual and educational jurisdiction, and thus tackle
internal questions and concerns that they may battle with, on an indi-
vidual level. It would be far preferable if The Hijaz was once again the
living example of the pristine Islamic state.
  The Hijaz perhaps also holds the key to a looser international organi-
zation which could include all the GCC countries, as well as other
important regional actors (from Iran to Israel), working constructively
together to advance regional cooperation, conflict prevention and resolu-

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tion, as well as deepen ties in the economic sphere, step up trade, and
work towards their common prosperity. The Hijaz has historically been
an answer to sectarianism: the place to resolve ideo-religious disputes,
and the forum to engage in deep dialogue through which parties can
come to a better understanding and greater harmony with one another
and their worldviews. The Hijaz could thus emerge, both symbolically
and practically, as the natural epicentre of such an initiative, perhaps
enjoying some form of internationalized status to empower its conflict-
resolution capacities and aptitude and also to further enhance its security.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is, in the current political climate, ideally
positioned to ‘revert’17 to its early essence of openness to the world and
all religions—and has the most to benefit—by leading this process.
  At the same time, there is heightened internal fragility in a number
of Arab and greater Middle East countries. Several countries in the
Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are strongly challenged
by their internal population dynamics, and particularly exponential
population growth, spearheaded by a ‘youth bulge’, which has deci-
sively shifted the region’s demographic landscape. The youth in ques-
tion are overwhelmingly male and unemployed, in search of productive
work opportunities and participation in a sustainable economy with
inclusive growth, mobility, and prospects. At the same time, a number
of countries in the region are suffering from an inability to deliver on
these domestic needs, challenged from their political economy models
and their asymmetries. These include an over-reliance on oil-generated
wealth and systems of governance that fail to provide a much-needed
sense of inclusion and common purpose to increasingly uneasy societ-
ies—societies which are characterized by delicate imbalances and
income unevenness, and are generally in need of urgent attention and
new options. If one adds to this already ‘explosive’ mix all the above-
discussed theo-ideological pressures, associated with particularly
restrictive religious dogmas, intolerance, and narrow worldviews, the
need for change is highlighted even further—especially at a time when
the new era of globalization, digital transformation, ‘borderless trade’,
and unprecedented global mobility compels openness and greater
regional and global cooperation. Countries such as Saudi Arabia are
experiencing these dynamics, and have already set out the beginnings
of major economic initiatives in the right direction.

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 THE HIJAZ
  In Chapter 9, we sketch out the framework of an inclusive regional
initiative, which could help tackle all these pressing challenges through
a positive integrative vision. A series of multi-layered cooperation steps
need to be taken to assist the countries of the greater Middle East to
overcome these crises in a constructive and harmonious manner on
their way to reform, and inclusive and sustainable growth. The Hijaz,
under Saudi Arabia’s stewardship, we will argue, can provide the ideo-
religious backbone of such a positive platform. It can provide the sym-
bolic integrative core which will assist and guide the Islamic nations in
overcoming ideo-religious obstacles. In many ways this would mean
that the countries of the region would work together to diminish the
‘negative space’, in order to advance and maximize the ‘positive
space’—whose natural embodiment would be—as it was 1400 years
ago—The Hijaz. This would grant the process a higher, reliable Islamic
morality and a coherent integration with the international order. It
would also allow Arab nations, under Saudi Arabian leadership, to
come together, benefit from The Hijaz’s constructive and integrative
influence, and, as they did centuries ago, use this guidance to settle
local disputes which have been holding back regional development and
joint progress for too long. Lastly, this decisive advent of the positive
space will enhance the region’s ability to isolate extremists, advance
de-radicalization, and jointly combat the incipient threats of ‘Islamic’
terrorism. It is crucial to permanently disarm this violent brand of
jihadi ideology and eliminate both the ideological and the socio-eco-
nomic factors that help fuel it. We will argue that a wide-ranging and
far-reaching inclusive regional initiative can catalytically help achieve
all the above-discussed and much-needed targets.
  Through these multi-level efforts, it will be possible for Islamic
nations to jointly claim Islam’s rightful seat at the high table of key
international organizations—starting with the UN, next to the Vatican.
This will allow for a safer navigation of the uncharted and seemingly
challenging waters of the twenty-first century. A new era for Islam and
the region can be inaugurated with the positive agency of all the states
of the greater Middle East. It is in their vital interest. They need it, and
so does the increasingly dynamic, rapidly changing, and progressively
volatile world.

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
Arab Statehood after the SecondWorldWar: Decolonization, Mandates,
and Arab Disorganization
This section focuses on the development of Middle East statehood,
taking into account the impact of decolonization and the forces shap-
ing the new Arab states from the Second World War onwards. As
emphasized earlier, the emergence of the Westphalian model of
nation-states gave rise to two main viewpoints: some felt that nation-
alism promoted limited interests and undermined universalism, while
others saw the importance of resolving this nationalist tendency
within the Islamic framework in order to promote the interest of
peoples and preserve foundational Islamic values. We trace these
dynamics through the statehood experience of several countries in the
greater Middle East, highlighting similarities and differences, as well
as common themes which emerged over time. Even in the most secu-
lar experiences of statehood, with very few exceptions, Islam was
present, in different expressions and different levels. In some cases,
where secularization, Western­ ization, and modernization were
imposed top-down, too fast, and too abruptly, ‘Islam’ came back with
a vengeance: in the various waves of Islamic revivalism, both Sunni
and Shi’ite, which culminated in the late 1970s.
  In short, we trace here the different ideas of post-war statehood in
the Islamic world. We discuss how states came to evolve after the
epoch-defining events that unfolded in the aftermath of the Second
World War and decisively shifted the map of the Middle East for the
next century. We begin with a discussion of the evolution of statehood
in the post-Second World War context, considering the implications of
decolonization, with reference to the stances of important actors in the
international system—namely the Great Powers, the superpowers, and
key international organizations such as the United Nations. In tandem,
our analysis examines the impact of the Cold War context, its geo-
economics and geopolitics. Then, it briefly traces the birth of a series
of regional organizations, including the Arab League, the Gulf
Cooperation Council, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
This section ends with a discussion of the tensions associated with the
evolution of statehood in the post-Second World War context in the
Middle East—such as the rise of Islamist extremist groups, starting
with the Soviet–Afghan war and the rise of the Mujahideen, the

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 THE HIJAZ
Taliban, al-Qaida, and DA’ISH. Overall, this chapter will deconstruct
 

the complex quest for Arab and Islamic statehood in the sunset years of
colonialism, the rise of the American era, and the Cold War. In the
process, it will trace and analyse key dynamics which had a pivotal role
in co-shaping the statehood experience in the greater Middle East
region. Key among them are modernization and Westernization;
regionalism, cooperation, and integration; ideology and religion; and
also the international context—decolonization, the Cold War, and the
new international relations setting. All in all, the countries of the
region, in an ironic act of self-entrapment, even after attaining full
independence, took on the Westphalian nation-state model and associ-
ated tools of statecraft. They tried to adopt it, then to adapt it, retain-
ing it in spite of a series of stumbles and shortcomings suggesting that
perhaps this was not the most appropriate vehicle for the optimal
development of Islamic statehood. The forces pressurizing these
nascent and particularly fragile statehood models were both internal
and external, and were exacerbated by both top-down and bottom-up
drivers. In the following sections we attempt an overview of this com-
plex journey, mapping the different examples and the distinct experi-
ences—as these evolved, over time, throughout the wider region.

The SecondWorldWar and its Aftermath: Paving the way

for Decolonization and the Evolution of Statehood
Following the aggression against, conquest, and subsequent annexation
of The Hijaz by Ibn Saud in 1925, the idea of the ‘Arab state’ seemed to
have lost both its key advocate and its direction and momentum. The
Mandate System and colonial rule did not favour great experimentation
in governance and political evolution. Arguably, the Mandates were an
uncomfortable way for states to enter the international system, and
unfavourable for the development of new concepts of statehood. This
was compounded by the Great Depression of the 1930s, which hindered
international economic and political progress. Interestingly, as dis-
cussed, the 1930s witnessed considerable political activity in The Hijaz,
with the founding of The Hijaz National Party and The Hijaz National
Charter—forces that sought to guide events in a more positive, reform-
ist direction, and gained significant momentum.

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
  The end of the Second World War saw the former Great Powers of
Europe shattered from the war effort and its dreadful toll across the
continent. The same was true with respect to several of the colonies
and Mandate countries, especially in the MENA region, which had
evolved into an important theatre for Second World War warfare and
strategy. Battles and tactics unfolded between mainly British, Vichy
French, Italian, and German forces, with the conflict affecting several
nations and former colonies in the broader region—from Somalia, to
Iraq, to Syria, to Lebanon, to Ethiopia, to the Anglo-Soviet invasion of
Iran. Effectively, all of the wider MENA region was seriously affected
by the conflicts, not least due to the German desire to reach the oil-
rich countries, starting with the Caucasus fields, and then moving
south, enveloping Iran and Iraq, to be joined from the other side,
through Rommel’s planned conquest of Egypt, and then into Saudi
Arabia. The German plans were eventually thwarted both by their fail-
ure to advance through Russia and the Caucasus to Azerbaijan and then
further down towards the Middle East and by the major British mobi-
lization to reverse the German strategic advance in Egypt. At the same
time, it was pivotal for the Allies to defend their access to and special
relationship with the oil-producing countries. Very similar to the post-
First World War experience, however, allies were once again forgotten
after the war, the costs of war inflicted upon the MENA and its people
were overlooked, and a new effort to consolidate control over key
resources and pivotal geostrategic infracture and locations unfolded.

The Failure of a System and the Birth of a Better: From the League
of Nations to the UN
The shortcomings of the League of Nations were clearly visible even
before the Second World War, and, especially in the run-up to the war,
with the League’s utter failure to prevent, mediate, or decisively inter-
vene to end conflicts and acts of aggression—even against its own sig-
natories. From Corfu, to The Hijaz, to Abyssinia/Ethiopia, to
Manchuria, to disarmament, to appeasement, to Sudetenland/
Czechoslovakia, to Anschluss, to the Second World War itself, the
League did not manage to alter the course of events, or to preserve or
advance peace. The Second World War, with its devastating toll and

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 THE HIJAZ
unprecedented devastation, left the world traumatized and the inter-
national system broken. A new initiative was clearly needed to set the
foundations for lasting peace, and ensure that there would never again
be a new total or global war. This drive and collective need was embod-
ied into the Charter of the United Nations.18 In parallel, given the
contribution of a series of former colonies in the war effort, and given
a shift in the power dynamics with the weakening of the Great Powers,
a wave of calls for decolonization immediately followed the end of the
war, with a clear drive towards self-determination and independence.
Under the UN, the Mandate System was replaced with the Trusteeship
Council, through which a clearer path towards independence was set
out. Until 1994 the stated aims of the Trusteeship Council were sum-
marized as follows: ‘The main goals of the System were to promote the
advancement of the inhabitants of Trust Territories and their progres-
sive development towards self-government or independence.’19

From Mandates, Colonies, and Protectorates to Decolonization

Decolonization came in two main waves. The first was in the immediate
aftermath of the war, and lasted for ten years (1945–55). In a way it
was a reaction to the problematic and unsustainable Mandate System,
which was in effect a repackaged version of colonialism, rebranded to
pay lip-service to respect for the borders, sovereignty, and self-deter-
mination of nations, under the ‘supervision’ of the Great Powers. A
striking example was that of British imperial—and then Mandate—
rule over India. It meant that Britain, a country a fraction the size of
India,20 situated in a different continent, managed through multi-lay-
ered and multi-faceted divide-and-rule, power, and tribal politics, as
well as the fuelling of sectarianism and local or regional antagonisms,
to control a country of 390 million people.21
  The second wave of decolonization started in 1957, with Ghana.
This former British colony was the first sub-Saharan African state to
proclaim independence. Nearby colonies, mainly under French rule,
followed soon, with fifteen new independent states emerging within
the next years, from Chad and Cameroon, to Guinea, Mali, Niger, and
Congo—to cite but a few. In other words, by 1960, fifteen years after
the end of the Second World War, a fully fledged ‘third world’, or a
series of ‘developing nations’, had entered the global arena, the pre-

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
dominant regional and international organizations, and were expanding
the dimensions of global politics as it had been known until that date.22
  Effectively, after the Second World War the world system moved
from multi-polarity—which included competition between the Great
Powers, the powerful (European) imperial nations, the League of
Nations, colonialism, and the Mandate System—to a new system. The
new order had the UN at its core—as a new global effort at better
managing world governance, security, and prosperity—coupled with
a drive for self-determination and decolonization, the Trusteeship
Council, and the rediscovery of statehood. The rise of the USSR and
the coexistence of two superpowers in the international system under-
pinned the transition to a bipolar world order. This new era, with its
numerous challenges, started with new great global divisions, with
many regions finding themselves affected by the so-called Iron Curtain
that separated the USSR-led, predominantly communist bloc from the
US-led, Western bloc, which was mostly liberal-democratic, free-
market, and capitalist. The two collective security treaty organizations
that underpinned this global dichotomy were the USSR-led Warsaw
Pact and the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). A
third pole also emerged: the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which
mainly consisted of countries with colonial pasts in Oceania, Africa,
Latin America, and Asia. The movement originated in the mid-1950s
with the pivotal agency of Yugoslavia’s ‘iron’ president, Josip Broz Tito,
India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and, Egypt’s second
president, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser.23

The 1950s and 1960s: From Anti-Colonialism and Anti-Imperialism

to Ba’athism and Nasserism
From the Korean War to the first war in Vietnam, and the division of
the country, the world saw a series of nationalist efforts to remove
foreign influences, both formally colonial and those of a more infor-
mal, but also dependent, nature. The same anti-imperialist push was
seen earlier in India, with the Gandhi-led expulsion of the British. In
this effort, US policy was working towards a level playing field, an end
to empire, and a recalibration of the balance of power. The clearest
manifestation of the US stance was its 1956 condemnation of the 1956

219
 THE HIJAZ
Franco-British–Israeli capture of Suez and attack on the forces of Egypt
(formerly a British Protectorate). The invasion and capture took place
in response to Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal in July 1956.24
In spite of the pan-Arab leader’s military defeat, a great symbolic,
politico-diplomatic victory was achieved through the US-led interna-
tional backlash against the actions of the imperialists. This was a crucial
moment in the de-legitimization of the former imperial Great Powers
and their geopolitical, geostrategic, and geo-economic tactics that had
defined events in certain regions over extended periods in modern
history. It forced the British and French to come to terms with the
realpolitik of the post-war world: that neither held ‘superpower’ influ-
ence or power. It possibly marked the end of empire. In a way, Nasser’s
stance and perceived politico-diplomatic win, following the ensuing
Franco-British withdrawal and UN intervention, became a reference
point for global anti-imperialist efforts, and gave renewed dynamism
to what came to be known as Nasserism, a very interesting blend of
single-party nationalism, attempts at advancing a socialist model, and
efforts to promote pan-Arabism.25
  Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–70), was a highly educated Egyptian
colonel, who opposed the Egyptian monarchy, King Faruq specifically,
whom he replaced in a (near-) bloodless coup in 1952. In fact, ironi-
cally, Nasser had researched extensively, at the Military University, the
role of General Allenby, who was among the key figures who misled
Sharif Hussein of The Hijaz in the period immediately after the end of
the First World War. Conceivably, this academic study might have
played a role in Nasser’s scepticism and critical stance towards Britain
and European colonialism. He was highly aware of the risks and pre-
dicaments of imperial designs, and of falling on the wrong end of their
calculations. He thus, perhaps unsurprisingly, chose to pull Egypt out
of the equation and outside that sphere, steering it to independence
from foreign influences. In fact, Nasser in 1952 was the first since
Sharif Hussein of The Hijaz to lead such a revolt. Other rebellions fol-
lowed in the region, and in general the threatened monarchies became
violent and brutal in their attempts to suppress dissent and popular
mobilization. Interestingly, the military abandoned them in several
cases—taking power itself and paving the way for new forms of Arab
authoritarian rule. Nasser, who was in many ways a catalyst for this

220
 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
trend, was a fierce critic of the monarchies, which he saw as betraying
the interests of the people, more loyal to foreign power centres and
European imperialists than to their people, and exploiting their privi-
leged access over their territories and subjects.26
  The best political label for Nasser is perhaps that he was an Egyptian
nationalist, who later adopted a non-aligned or neutral position with
his own brand of Arab socialism and a state-led approach to moderniza-
tion and several aspects of government.27 In what Cleveland calls ‘mili-
tary enters politics’, a team of junior military officers, known as the
Free Officers, led by Nasser, deposed the then Egyptian king and called
for the destruction of British colonialism and its collaborators.28 The
coup leaders were later established as the Revolutionary Command
Council (RCC), and formed the executive body of government. Their
immediate core aims were to remove their opponents from positions
of power or influence and to win popular support through reforms.
The themes that ‘framed’ this bid for power were a ‘patriotic desire to
end the British occupation’ and ‘vague notions of reform and social
justice’.29 Overall, Nasser and the RCC’s calls for socialism and a strat-
egy of nationalizing everything must also be (partially) viewed through
this prism of ‘ending foreign influences’ and ‘dependencies’ on external
or unaccountable (non-RCC-controlled) domestic sources of power
and influence.
  Nasser rose to power in Egypt soon after the creation of the Ba’ath
Party in Iraq and Syria by Michel Aflaq (1910–89), who was Christian
Orthodox, and a Sunni Muslim, Salah al-Din al-Bitar (1912–80).30
Aflaq and al-Bitar founded this mixture of nationalism and socialism in
the 1930s, while studying in Paris. The word Ba’ath could be construed
to mean ‘resurrection’, ‘rebirth’, or ‘renaissance’.31 The Ba’ath Party
showcased its strength and rising influence in the 1954 elections in
Syria, and ‘was to develop as the most significant ideological Arab party
of the postwar era’.32 Some of the core guiding principles of the Ba’ath
included a commitment to advance freedom and social justice; deliver
‘a national resurrection’; independence from imperial influence and
control; ‘a belief in the existence of a single Arab nation and a commit-
ment to achievement of Arab unity’; and a socialist vision from pro-
gressive socialist reform, to cite a few.33 Also, crucially, it was, accord-
ing to some accounts, Aflaq who, despite his Christian Orthodox

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 THE HIJAZ
beliefs, ‘made Islam an integral part of Baathist ideology’, ‘equat[ing]
Islam and Arabism’—which he regarded ‘as expressions of the Arab
spirit’.34 These themes left a powerful impression on Nasser, influenc-
ing the Nasserist agenda in Egypt as well as Nasser’s vision for the
region. And, as we shall see, Islam did not disappear following the
collapse of the monarchies in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and other countries in
the Greater MENA. It followed divergent paths, but remained central
 

to social cohesion and scholarly reflection as well as a reference point

for the region (and regional initiatives).
  Interestingly, no communist regime—per se—rose to power in the
Arab world (nor in any predominantly Islamic nation). There was the
nationalist model, with socialist dimensions, such as Nasser’s, but not
a USSR-type communist party. For instance, when the Ba’ath Party
came to power in Iraq, it banned the Communist Party and its expo-
nents and supporters, many of whom were executed or imprisoned. In
short, these revolutions proved bereft of communist stimulus or out-
come. At the same time, in predominantly Muslim Indonesia, which
was prominent in the Non-Aligned Movement in the early 1960s, the
nationalist Suharto regime carried out an extremely violent purge of
communists and their supporters between 1965 and 1968, in which up
to a million people were killed.35
  Both Ba’athism and Nasserism were fuelled by nationalism rather
than religion. In fact, they had more socialist and nationalist than
Islamic characteristics. However, despite their socialist inclinations,
neither went completely communist, nor did they immerse them-
selves in the Soviet milieu. Instead, Nasser systematically played the
non-aligned card, and was among the most prominent members of the
movement. Nasser’s bid for socialism, and desire to nationalize the
country’s critical assets, resources, and infrastructure, must also be
seen through an anti-imperial lens—a reaction to the long-term
exploitation of the country’s wealth by foreigners, especially Britain.
Part of this paradoxical ideological blend emanating from Egypt was
a desire to push back and if possible eliminate external influences,
dependencies, and rooted interests. Nasserism became the Arab
embodiment of anti-colonial sentiment; the rightful inheritor of
the—formerly foreign-exploited—national affluence. Pan-Arabism
effectively emerged as the new ‘great idea’, the broader narrative in
which to frame domestic efforts and achieve independent influence

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
and renown in the regional and global arenas. This Egypt-led effort
eventually gathered regional support, with several Arab countries
coming under the control of single-party regimes advancing a
Nasserite form of Arab socialism, dedicated to state-led development
and the restoration of national control. Such phenomena unfolded in
Algeria, Tunisia, Iraq, and Syria, with the latter two having the par-
ticular Ba’athist dimension discussed above. Roger Owen crucially
comments on the statecraft used by the leaders of the above-men-
tioned five countries, which emphasized ‘fine-sounding technological’
language; appeals to expertise and scientific planning; the underlining
of the need for state-led growth, rapid development and more equi-
table income distribution; and ‘the more idealistic language of Arab
socialism’ as an additional framing tool.36 What is particularly impor-
tant is the cautious insistence of all five leaderships on clearly distin-
guishing this path of Arab nationalism and socialism within the Middle
Eastern context from the ‘dangerous notion of social division and class
struggle’—in other words, they drew a clear dividing line with com-
munism (applied socialism).37
  In Iraq38 and Syria39 Ba’athism was very much the driver of or fuel
for nationalism. By Ba’athism, we mean ‘the principles and policies of
the Baath political party of Iraq and Syria characterized especially by
promotion of pan-Arab socialism’.40 In his excellent discussion of the
birth, rise, evolution, and eventual ‘metamorphosis’ of the Ba’ath
Party,41 John Devlin captures its origins, and the key paradox that even
though Syria and Iraq both embraced the Ba’athist ideology, their gov-
ernments maintained antagonistic mutual relations, which persisted
diachronically and were often heated.42 According to Devlin
The Arab Socialist Baath (Resurrection) Party began its half-century of
existence as a movement standing for Arab nationalism, freedom from
foreign rule, and the establishment of a single Arab state. For the past
quarter-century, it has been represented by two mutually hostile
authoritarian regimes, those in Iraq and Syria. Each claims to be the
sole legitimate inheritor of the original Baath legacy.43
  Interestingly, therefore, in spite of their geographical proximity and
like-minded ideology, Iraq and Syria, the two Ba’athist single-party
states, did not pursue a union, in keeping with the core aim stated in
the Ba’ath Party’s vision—the establishment of a single Arab state.44

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 THE HIJAZ
Instead, efforts towards such a union between two regional states were
actually advanced between Egypt and Syria, under a mixed umbrella of
pan-Arabism and Ba’athism. The result was al-Jumhuriyya al-‘Arabiyya
al-Muttahida, the United Arab Republic (UAR), a political union
between Egypt and Syria that lasted for three years (February 1958–
September 1961). In 1961 a coup in Syria brought in new leadership,
which immediately declared independence from Egypt. On the other
hand, Egypt, the most prominent supporter of pan-Arabism, kept the
name United Arab Republic until September 1971. Another effort to
advance a union—a Hashemite push for union between Iraq and
Jordan—was undermined by a military coup. The ephemeral Arab
Federation of Iraq and Jordan was founded by King Faisal II of Iraq and
his cousin, King Hussein of Jordan. This development coincided with
the Egypt–Syria union, and was launched as a form of ‘counterweight’,
in February 1958.45 The attempt collapsed six months later, however,
as a military coup removed King Faisal.46
  President Nasser tried to advance several other unions between
Egypt and countries of the region, including with North Yemen and
Iraq—all unsuccessful. At the very heart of Nasser’s conception of the
Arab state was the need to keep it free of foreign influence—espe-
cially British or European. It was very much this anti-colonial and
anti-imperial drive that further enhanced his pan-Arabism, along with
a conviction that the Arab states can best navigate the challenging
international environment if they enhance their unity. Undoubtedly,
the leaders advancing such unions—and Nasser particularly—also
sought personal recognition as statesmen in attempting this. Overall,
Arab popular opinion has been positive towards Nasser’s efforts to
advance Arab unity, state-led modernization, and social justice, as well
as freedom from imperialist schemes and exploitation. Even though
not a statesman in the traditional sense, Nasser was in several ways
inspirational—primarily for the Egyptians, but also for Arabs,
Muslims, and in general nations and people seeking to rid themselves
of foreign interference in the post-1950 context. Cleveland captures
this diverse blend of sentiments and influence that Nasser inspired for
many years in the Arab world:
During the period from 1952 to 1967, Gamal Abd al-Nasser was the
embodiment of what the Arab world wanted to be: assertive, inde-

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
pendent, and engaged in the construction of a new society freed of
the imperial past and oriented toward a bright Arab future. His initia-
tives were copied in other Arab states, and so dominant was his stat-
ure that such terms as Nasserism and Nasserites became common
political currency. … For a time he presented the Arab world with
the image of a dynamic leader who defied the imperial powers and
swept away the old ruling elite. He seemed to represent progressive
reformism … and a spirit of hope that made many believe in the
possibility of a re-birth of a new and powerful Arab order and inde-
pendence in the face of external pressures. … It is appropriate to
identify his years in power as the age of Nasser.47
  In the years that followed, more ‘single-party regimes’48 sprang up
in the region, and some strong leaders eventually consolidated power
in the form of authoritarian governments. Examples are Libya, with
Muammar Gaddafi; Syria, with Hafez al-Assad; Iraq, with Saddam
Hussein; Sudan, with Gaafar Nimeiry; and Nasser’s successor in Egypt,
Anwar Sadat.49 Colonel Gaddafi, for instance, rose to power in Libya
in 1969, to become one of the region’s longest-standing leaders.50
Gaddafi’s Libya was a complex mix; in 1977 he added socialist colours
to the country’s profile, rebranding the state as the Great Socialist
Popular Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. In spite of the symbolism, however,
the predominant classification used for Libya was strong authoritarian
rule, backed with military force and governance with an iron fist.
Similarly, ten years later, in 1979, the Ba’athist Saddam Hussein
worked to take the place of his cousin as president of Iraq, to establish
a comparable blend of authoritarianism.
  Common elements across these single-party states include: (a) the
need for a strong leader, usually with some form of military capacity
or commanding the absolute, full support of the armed forces and the
police (monopoly of force); (b) state-led political–economic models
often with leftist–socialist overtones; (c) the pursuit of independent
standing—minimizing external influences; and (d) strong authoritarian
rule, but not totalitarian in the absolute sense (such as Stalinism).51 In
sum, there were single-party states, born from decolonization and
anti-imperialism, challenging ‘liberal monarchies’ and kings, who were
always susceptible to the criticism of ‘listening to’ or being ‘played’ or
‘manipulated’ by European imperialists.

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 THE HIJAZ
  Another important common theme across these Arab single-party
regimes was their stance in the Cold War. In spite of their socialist–left-
ist overtones, as discussed earlier, these countries were neither totali-
tarian nor communist. They never formally entered the Communist
Bloc. The USSR’s support of Egypt in the Suez Crisis of 1956 won it
some favour, and in general, Nasser and the pan-Arab states of the
region were more positively predisposed towards the Soviets. That
being said, the powerful anti-imperialist sentiments across these Arab
societies meant that the people did not wish the substitution of the
European–Western imperialists with Soviet–Communist influence and
interference in the region. Pragmatic considerations, concerning mili-
tary technology, know-how, and hardware ensured, however, that from
1955 to 1975 a loose yet steady alliance between Egypt, other coun-
tries of the region, and the USSR persisted.
  Notably, Owen points out that these authoritarian, single-party
states did not find religion an obstacle to their control or power.
Specifically, he highlights that ‘no regime felt able to abandon Islam
entirely, for this would have been to cut the most important single
ideological and cultural link between it and the bulk of the popula-
tion’.52 In other words, Islam served as the invisible ‘glue’ facilitating
social cohesion, but was also an intangible bridge between the broader
populace striving for economic progress and development and the
small ruling elite steering the state-led domestic political economy.
Nasser even managed to have his programme partially endorsed by
Egypt’s religious establishment, obtaining fatwas for some of his central
policies.53 In these authoritarian contexts, as seen also in Libya for
example with the rise of Gaddafi, the leadership often tried to maintain
a strong grip over the educational and religious establishments.
Nasser’s tactics also included a reform of al-Azhar University, a move
that helped strengthen his control over Egypt’s religious institutions,
and had a multi-faceted diachronic impact and significance:
Nasser’s modernization of al-Azhar was a way for the [president] to con-
trol closely the religious institution and to appropriate religion, without
making it disappear from the public sphere. Crecelius himself later quali-
fied his description of the 1961 reform by underlining the strong links
between the Nasserist regime and religion. In the long term, al-Azhar’s

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
modernization helped the ulema re-emerge on the political and social
scene. As a key moment, this ‘modernizing’ reform can help understand
the current relationship between religion and politics in Egypt.54
  Zeghal goes on to discuss critically the successful ‘framing’ tactics
employed by Nasser in advancing these policies and ‘reforms’, while at
the same time analysing their impact on the ‘ulama’ and debating their
bureaucratization. An idea put forth by Zeghal is that Nasser managed to
establish a form of religious monopoly, stripping the shaykhs and the
‘ulama’ of their influence and powers, as well as doing away with the
waqfs (pious foundations) and the religious judicial system.55 Interestingly,
the unique and highly symbolic institution of al-Azhar had already been
used as a symbol for national independence by Nasser’s regime.56
Through Nasser’s strategy, reforms in the religious, religious–judicial,
and religious–scholarly spheres helped to legitimize his ideology of Arab
socialism and the co-optation to that agenda of the ‘ulama’.37

What Became of the ‘Arab East’

Lebanon, like Syria, was a French Mandate. They both attained their
independence during the Second World War, a year after the fall of
France, in 1941. By 1946, after some heightened moments of violence
and conflict, the last French soldiers had left the two countries.
Lebanon in the period studied here was an interesting outlier. It
enjoyed a different statehood experience; it was as if Lebanon basically
remained relatively stable and ideologically isolated in the period
between the late 1940s and the 1960s, despite regional instability,
uncertainty, and turmoil. The small state emerged as a magnet for Arab
funds and personal wealth, presenting a safe banking system and a pre-
dictable environment for deposits and security of capital at a time
when a wave of socialist and leftist authoritarian ideologues were
advancing eccentric, untested, and often communist-infused, statist
economic agendas which included forceful nationalization (for exam-
ple, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq). While not without crises, until the mid-
1970s Lebanon was used as a reference point, an example of the advan-
tages of ‘sectarian pluralism’, with the small state’s prosperous yet
diverse population ‘thriv[ing] as a multi-religious, multi-ethnic urban

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mosaic’.58 In 1975–6 there was a decisive ‘wake-up call’ regarding the
fragility of even prosperous states in times of powerful ideological
winds, which expose the limits of cohesion built on artificial founda-
tions and extensive dependency.59 Family and religious ties proved
stronger than national ones given the inability of the ruling elites and
the political system to advance a truly inclusive bottom-up political
development.60 A bloody ten-year civil war followed, with a multitude
of designs by regional actors (such as Iran, Syria and Libya) for interfer-
ence in the small Middle Eastern country.61 Crucially, like Saudi Arabia
and Jordan, which we discuss below, Lebanon maintained close ties
with the West, especially the USA. The superpower intervened in 1958
 

when the country faced the prospect of civil war, deploying 15,000
troops on the country’s beaches.62 Arguably, this highlighted the duality
of Cold War and Western priorities: namely, to maintain stability and
the status quo when this was in line with their interests, and to prevent
at all costs instability which could lead to the ideological immersion of
actors in the Communist Bloc.63
  The experience in the Arabian Peninsula has been different. The
smaller members of what is known today as the Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) were effectively British-controlled ports and garri-
sons—‘sub-states’, in a way—the Trucial States.64 Pivotal in the history
of the Persian Gulf Protectorates was the 1915 Darin Pact, signed
between the British and Ibn Saud.65 This central agreement was effec-
tively the first step towards international recognition of the nascent
Saudi state (then the Sultanate of Najd). In exchange for recognition of
Saudi statehood and its first borders, the British secured Ibn Saud’s com-
mitment to respect the current arrangement over the Trucial States. In
the process however, not only did they recognize Saudi control in the
wider area, they also legitimized Saudi influence in the contiguous ter-
ritories, paving the way for the eventual aggression against and subse-
quent annexation of The Hijaz. The agreement was sealed with the 1927
Anglo-Saudi Treaty of Jeddah, which came to swiftly recognize the new
arrangement (the Kingdom of The Hijaz and Najd), and re-confirmed
British influence over the Trucial coast. The Trucial States found them-
selves trapped in a very long period of ‘sub-statehood’,66 as ‘Trucial
shaykhdoms’ under British control, there for the advancement of British
imperial interests. The British managed to retain this arrangement until

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
the independence of the seven principal shaykhdoms, in 1971. In one of
the most notable case studies of Arab statehood, these shaykhdoms rap-
idly moved on to form the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—in fear of
both the Gulf’s hegemon, Saudi Arabia, after their liberation, and of Iran
(especially after the revolution).67

— Saudi Arabia
As discussed and documented earlier in this book, the Saudi statehood
experience has been unique. Ever since Ibn Saud’s forces conquered
Makkah, ending the Kingdom of The Hijaz in the process, a new ruler
had headed Arabia and sat at the ‘high seat of Islam’: the House of Saud,
leader of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and head of the Wahhabi reli-
gious order, whose political revival had started in 1902 with the con-
quest of Riyadh.68 While oil was discovered in the late 1930s in Saudi
Arabia (1938 specifically), the decisive growth of the industry did not
start immediately. It had to wait till after the end of the war.69 Ibn Saud
officially adopted a neutral stance during the Second World War, until
March 1945, when the kingdom declared war on Germany. However,
it had cooperated closely with the Allies since 1940, and Ibn Saud
openly supported Britain—a policy that also had to do with Saudi
Arabia’s dire need for economic assistance given the free-fall in the
pilgrimage revenues.70 Indirect US subsidies—investments in Saudi
Arabia’s oil-related capacities—were also key for the kingdom’s sur-
vival and subsequent development.71
  With the union between Egypt and Syria, the formation of the
United Arab Republic and the seeming momentum of pan-Arabism was
seen as a threat by Saudi Arabia. In the kingdom, thoughts of interven-
tion immediately surfaced, and several attempts to undermine and sabo-
tage the UAR were launched immediately. Furthermore, King Faisal of
Saudi Arabia sought to advance a competing vision, in an attempt to
counterbalance the challenge of Nasser-led pan-Arabism. The Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia therefore initiated a coordinated campaign to advance
pan-Islamism. This ideological alternative to pan-Arabism made an
impression in countries such as Pakistan. Pan-Arabism’s edge was mainly
the popularity and respect inspired by its key exponent, President
Nasser of Egypt.72 In advancing pan-Islamism, however, the Kingdom of

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 THE HIJAZ
Saudi Arabia appeared to have two major advantages. First and foremost
was The Hijaz region, home to Makkah and Medina, Islam’s Holiest
Sites—gate-keepers and key-holders to the highest source of symbolic
legitimacy and power within Islam. Secondly, from the 1950s onwards,
Saudi Arabia’s excessive oil wealth was also used to buttress the spread
of ideo-political and ideo-religious influence.73
  The attempts by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to counterbalance the
ideo-political manoeuvres and external relations of Nasser’s Egypt and
other pan-Arabian states also evolved in Cold War terms, with some
ironic aspects. For instance, it maintained a close political, economic,
energy, and military alliance with the USA, which placed it firmly
among the supporters of the Western Bloc. To justify this position,
Saudi Arabia also sought to connect it with religious considerations. In
a nutshell, the argument went that Nasser and the pan-Arabist leaders
supporting or cooperating with the USSR were betraying Islam, as they
had decided to support and work with communists, who were atheists
and unbelievers. Instead, Saudi support, alignment, and alliance with
the US–West was framed in the context that they are, at least, People
of the Book, believing in and maintaining respect for religion. Saudi
Arabia’s path had several components, ranging from statesmanship and
continuity in leadership—inspired by its iron leader, Ibn Saud—to the
very particular internal ideo-religious realities that it embraced—
namely, Wahhabism in its politics, education, religion, justice system,
and society, coupled with Shari’a law—and the very unbalanced politi-
cal economy based on the unthinkable riches associated with the largest
proven and most easily extractable oil reserves in the world. The fol-
lowing passage aptly captures the complex and diverse parallel track
on which Saudi Arabia embarked in the post-war period discussed:
In the years that followed World War II, Ibn Sa’ud’s status differed from
that of other Arab rulers, and conferred [on] him a legitimacy they did
not possess. He had won his Kingdom through his own efforts and was
not tainted, as were his Hashimite rivals, by association with European
support. Nor could he be accused of allowing an imported secular
constitution to be imposed on his domains. His rule was founded on
the indigenous traditions of Wahhabi Islam and tribal politics. … The
Saudi legal system was based on the shari’ah. Saudi Arabia’s reputation
as an exemplary Islamic state was enhanced by … the holy cities. …
That state remained tribal conservative, and inward-looking, but its

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
very existence was an achievement, and its durability is a tribute to the
foundations laid by Ibn Saud.74

Decolonized Liberal Monarchies

— Jordan
From the colonies and the Mandate countries, the region transitioned
primarily to what Roger Owen calls the ‘liberal’ monarchies, which
came under pressure from single-party rule—their vehicle being decol-
onization. These decolonized ‘liberal’ monarchies, such as Jordan and
Morocco, had previously been ‘sub-states’, largely secular. Hashemite
Jordan is a prominent example of this model. Jordan effectively surfaced
through imperial ‘restructurings in the region’, which created a British-
controlled zone following the partition of Greater Syria. Humphreys
describes Jordan’s post-Second World War role as a regional ‘broker
between conflicting agendas and ideologies within the Arab world, or
between the Arab countries and the West’.75 He suggests that this has
remained the case, owing to a diverse set of reasons, including the coun-
try’s origins and internal composition, history, and size.76 When King
Abdullah of Jordan was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1951, most analysts
predicted the collapse of the kingdom.77 However, King Hussein,
Abdullah’s grandson, who took over two years after the assassination,
proved a heavy-duty, all-weather and skilful leader.78 He steered the
Kingdom of Jordan to safety even in the most difficult moments and
most complex crises presented in its post-1953 history.79 In a way, King
Hussein had the political skill of a survivalist: the talent of reading shift-
ing landscapes and adapting early and swiftly, as required, to advance
national security in contexts of extreme fluidity and grave uncertainty.
He was also clearly dexterous in managing internal dynamics in a coun-
try with stark internal divisions.80 As Humphreys observes, King
Hussein ‘variously played the ardent Arab Nationalist, the staunch ally
of the West, the thoughtful moderate—whatever the situation at any
given moment in time seemed to demand’.81
  One must also consider the significance and the realities of regional
and international politics, which highlighted the importance of having
a solid ‘buffer’, and a balancer, in a way, between, Syria, Iraq, Israel,
and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The West has repeatedly sought to

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 THE HIJAZ
maintain such ‘anchors of stability’ globally, fortifying them, as
required, to maintain favourable regional balances and advance what it
perceives as its vital interests.82 Notably, perhaps the greatest challenge
to the kingdom’s—and Hussein’s—stability came from ideology: pan-
Arabism, in 1957. Cleveland observes that a ‘wave of opposition
[mounted] inspired by a convergence of all of the reformist currents of
the era—Nasserism, Ba’athism and communism’.83 Faced with these
challenges, the regime understood that martial law and deepening its
ties with the West might be a safer path for survival and stability, com-
bined with a distancing from the region’s ideological adventures as far
as possible. The alignment with the West came with military and finan-
cial assistance—crucial for the attainment of security on all levels:
external, internal, and economic. Given the size of the kingdom, sus-
tained financial support, principally from the USA, allowed for periods
of steady growth.84 Jordan, overall, in the period studied in this chap-
ter, was a steady player, active in the Arab League, with geopolitical
significance, which, in the context of the Cold War, found itself on the
same side of globe as Saudi Arabia.

— Libya
Libya also emerged after the Second World War as a decolonized liberal
monarchy. An enemy of Italy and the Axis in the war, it naturally sided
with the Allies. Under US–British leadership, it played an important
role in the 1942–3 North Africa theatre against German and Italian
forces.85 Different zones were under French and British control, but,
through international deliberations and UN initiatives, a united, inde-
pendent Libya emerged as a liberal monarchy under King Mohammed
Idris.86 Britain and the USA wasted no time in advancing their interests
in the newly independent kingdom, bringing it within the Western
sphere of influence through establishing bases and economic depen-
dency. Oil discovery in the late 1950s allowed Libya to diminish depen-
dence and reverse foreign influence. As discussed earlier, the turn of
the 1960s brought a shift to authoritarianism, following the bloodless
military coup that brought Gaddafi to power. The coup initiated the
long and unpredictable rule of Gaddafi with the mixed Arab nationalist,
Islamic, and socialist ideological extensions associated with the Brother
Leader’s own personal philosophy and programme.87 The change in

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
government and stark turnaround in the Libyan statehood experience
also shifted the international loyalties of the country.

— Morocco
Morocco, the MENA state most proximate to the European continent,
and a French Protectorate for nearly half a century, also eventually
emerged as a decolonized liberal monarchy. French imperial diplomacy
and manoeuvring kept it within France’s sphere of control for a whole
decade after the Second World War—sustaining, of course, the illusion
of the Moroccan sultan’s sovereignty. Efforts towards independence
climaxed after the end of the war, with the kingdom’s leadership
emphasizing the state’s Arab links.88 By 1954 conditions in the region
favoured the Moroccan king’s agenda, as the Algerian War for
Independence certainly worked to divert French attention. In 1956 the
French, having re-ordered their priorities and weighed up their
options, agreed to the advancement of constitutional government in
Morocco, sealed with the restoration of Sidi Mohammed (Mohammed
V). The shift in the French position and the momentum that had been
developed in Morocco left little room for Spanish imperial strategy, so
they struck a similar agreement, also ending their Protectorate.89 From
1957 onwards the evolution of statehood in Morocco took a rather
linear course, with parliamentary elections six years later in 1963. The
state resembled a more functional constitutional monarchy by 1970.
The 1970s, however, saw several failed coup attempts and an election
widely perceived as fraudulent, and Morocco entered the 1980s in a
worsening economic slowdown and with popular unrest in sight.90
Nonetheless, its post-independence political evolution was not, over-
all, among the most tumultuous. If anything, there was, especially in
the Cold War context, considerable predictability,91 with Morocco
largely aligning with the Western Bloc, building stronger ties with its
Western neighbours, and a close alliance with the USA—a diplomatic
link that remains very strong to date.92

Statehood and the Pursuit of Secularism

At the time of this drive for pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism and the
different sub-state and regional efforts to re-insert or emphasize the

233
 THE HIJAZ
Islamic component in the context of statehood and governance, in
Turkey and Iran the driving forces were pushing in a different direc-
tion: ‘Kemalism’ in Turkey,93 and the secular rule of the Shah in Iran.
The push was towards the establishment of a Western lifestyle and
code, and was largely forced upon these societies. The leaders of these
two nations wanted to lead secular states, in the Western style, and
societies reflecting this—from dress code to professions and the
domestic political economy.

— Turkey
To understand the post-war evolution of statehood in Turkey, one must
start with the collapse of empire, the country’s poor positioning in
relation to the First World War, and subsequent total defeat. One must
then identify the parallels between the paradigmatically punitive,
humiliating terms imposed on Germany and Turkey, as highlighted by
the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Sèvres respectively. The signing
of the Sèvres Treaty by the Turkish sultan was a moment of national
embarrassment and a source of embitterment. The Ottoman map—
and Turkey itself—was effectively being opened up, partitioned, and
carved up, reducing a mighty empire to the spoils of war for imperial-
ists, neighbours, and former subjects. The defeat, total surrender, and
crushing terms signed by the state’s leaders also decisively sealed the
fate of the Ottoman Caliphate. And, as discussed in earlier chapters,
with the subsequent fall of Sharif Hussein and the annexation of The
Hijaz, in a way the very institution of the Caliphate itself ended.
  It was against this gloomy backdrop that the nationalist, anti-impe-
rialist independence struggle—the Turkish National Movement, led by
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk94—developed its sweeping momentum. The
fuel came from the Turkish collective consciousness, memory, and sen-
timent. The leadership was personified by a strong figure, who had
achieved heroic feats in the war, and had the capacity to inspire a peo-
ple in search for pride, strength, and the rebirth of a strong, indepen-
dent, and influential country.95 Atatürk spearheaded this effort, with a
democratic–reformist modernization vision and a pragmatic military
strategy which focused on expunging foreign influence and reinstating
Turkish sovereignty. Domestically, Atatürk advanced an unprecedented

234
 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
top-down campaign of ‘forced secularization’. He stripped all power
from the religious establishment, and other nodes of power. At the
same time, the second component of the Kemalist vision was the
removal of all foreign imperial powers and their meddling: the Italian,
French, British, and Greek military forces were all expelled from the
country. The campaign climaxed with the reclaiming of Izmir and the
ending of foreign presence in the zones that they had formerly con-
trolled.96 He then founded a new, secular Turkish democracy, with his
party at its core. The reasons behind Kemal’s popularity were similar
to other cases we have studied earlier in this chapter—including, cru-
cially, the popular image and deep-rooted perception that it was he
who had defeated and expelled the imperialists. Kemal was seen as the
one paramount actor who stood up to the imperialists, ending their
malevolent plans to further dissect the Ottoman Empire, and Turkey
itself. He embodied the national self-determination–independence
effort in the aftermath of the First World War and its humiliating terms.
  It was Kemal’s unique personal appeal and the restoration of power-
ful collective emotions—such as pride, national identity, and hon-
our—that enabled the enforcement of this far-reaching modernization,
secularization, and Westernization exercise.97 Striking examples of this
drastic socio-political transformation include the forced introduction
of the Latin alphabet,98 the stripping of religious elements from the
national symbols, the constitution,99 and local, regional, and national
governance. While Kemal never fought or affronted Islam, he drew a
clear line between the secular government, the rapidly secularizing
society, and the religious sphere. Religious symbols, teaching, power,
and influence were thereby restricted to the religious domain: universi-
ties, schools, and institutions of faith, not politics or society at large.
Kemal stayed in power until his death in 1938, and Turkish statehood
from the 1920s to the 2010s in many ways reflected his legacy and
definitive influence.
  The new Turkish democracy, with its rising power, reinstated influ-
ence and relevance, and steadily re-established ties with the European
powers and the West. This was due not just to recognition for the new
Turkish stability and secular Western-style progress domestically, but
also to pragmatic considerations, including: (a) economic and geo-
 

economic interests; (b) political and geopolitical interests and calcula-

 

235
 THE HIJAZ
tions; (c) Turkey’s paramount geostrategic importance. Turkey did not
 

repeat its mistakes in the Second World War; it remained neutral for
most of the war, declaring war on Germany and Japan in time to
ensure that it was on the winning side. From the 1950s onwards, a new
characteristic that entered Turkish political life was the role of the mili-
tary as a gatekeeper of secularism, with numerous interventions in
Turkish statehood and political development through systematic mili-
tary coups—several of which were successful. In the Cold War, Turkey
found itself in the Western Bloc early on, becoming a member of
NATO in 1952, which kick-started the country’s Euro-Atlantic inte-
gration.100 This paved the way for deeper Turkish–European ties, with
the country eventually signing an association agreement with the
European Economic Community (EEC) and later on becoming a full
member of the European Customs Union. Turkey had its share of
political turmoil and violence, but overall this was minimal compared
to other countries of the Greater Middle East discussed earlier. The rise
of political Islam in Turkey effectively unfolded in the 1990s, after the
Cold War. As with Saudi Arabia, a strong link with the USA emerged.
In the case of Turkey, the catalyst of this strategic link was NATO. Under
 

the NATO umbrella and a series of multi-layered ties which ranged

from economic assistance, to trade, armaments, and technology trans-
fer, a sweeping US military basing strategy unfolded in Turkey.101

— Iran
The Iranian experience consisted of an interesting interchange
between times of relative political continuity and significant twists,
crises, and turnarounds—culminating in the 1979 Iranian Islamic
Revolution. To begin to deconstruct the Iranian experience without
going too far back into Persian history, one must first acknowledge the
role of the First World War; even though Iran remained neutral, it
became a scene of extensive and heavy fighting. Following the war, a
military commander, Reza Khan, rose to power. The institution of the
Shah was formally installed in 1926, with Khan crowned as Reza Shah
Pahlavi. As withTurkey’s poor positioning in the First World War, Iran
found itself on the losing side in the Second World War, having sided
with the German-led Axis. This led to its crushing by a joint Russo-

236
 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
British intervention and subsequent occupation, followed by the
deposition of the Shah. He was succeeded (in fact replaced) by his son,
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–80).102 His rule was continually chal-
lenged by domestic pressures, civil tension, and unrest, as well as
foreign influences. This phase of Iranian post-war statehood would
have been violently interrupted by domestic unrest in the early 1950s,
if not for a decisive Anglo-American intervention that allowed the
institution of the Shah to be maintained despite popular pressure. Key
internal dynamics to highlight included Reza Shah’s oppression, which
had led to the periodic silencing of other domestic power-centres
such as the ‘ulama’, parts of the elite,103 and tribal leaders. Like the
majority of the cases discussed here, the military was the Shah’s clos-
est ally and most significant support group.104 The most dynamic advo-
cates of reform included, most prominently, the Tudeh (Masses) Party,
with its Marxist foundations; but there was also a diverse set of
groups, representing different new socio-economic realities and
emerging ideologies, from constitutional liberals to the labour move-
ment and the new incipient middle class.105 Crucially, similar to the
single-party regimes discussed earlier, the Tudeh leadership, even
though closer to the Eastern Bloc and with Marxist leanings, avoided
being labelled communists label in the hope of avoiding the wrath of
the religious establishment and the risk of alienating the wider popu-
lar religious sentiment.106 Tudeh was extremely well organized, and
became deeply rooted within society, reaching an unprecedented
momentum in the mid-1940s, with both insiders and outsiders feeling
that its rise to power was imminent and inevitable.
  With respect to the international context and competing interests,
foreign meddling in Iran often seemed like a three-way tug of war,
with the USA deepening ties with the government and the military to
check Soviet influence and thwart their designs; the Soviets support-
ing Tudeh; and the British testing their divide-and-rule manoeuvres in
the Iranian context, at all levels—oil, geo-economics,s and politics.
As with monarchs who were deposed by coups—such as in Egypt and
Iraq—the Shah’s position was challenged repeatedly for allowing for
too much foreign interference and influence. The key difference was
the loyalty of the military, which was ruthless when it came to the
violent suppression of opposition, and the strong external support

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 THE HIJAZ
that came at times of need. From the early 1950s to his toppling by
the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, Reza Shah’s Achilles’ heel was
the perception that he was heavily influenced—if not manipulated—
by the West.107
  The Shah’s agenda was similar to that of Kemal: top-down modern-
ization and secularization. These reform efforts culminated in the
Shah’s so-called White Revolution.108 This was a strategy of transform-
ing Iran and its society along Western lines. Key issues were the lack of
inspirational leadership and popular support. Unlike Kemal, the Shah
was not perceived as the national liberator or a hero of independence.
Instead, he was widely seen as a semi-puppet leader, heavily dependent
on foreign powers and the military. The forceful secularization in Iran
often seemed externally imposed. Another major obstacle to the Shah’s
efforts at secularization were the nation’s deep-rooted collective reli-
gious emotions. In many ways Islam remained perhaps the central
social reference point within Iranian society throughout this period.
The more the Shah targeted religion in his efforts to push through his
modernization–secularization agenda and reforms, the more defensive
many diverse social groups became—with Islam being a key reference
point for their common purpose. In parallel to the Shah’s Western-style
reforms, Islamic reformist currents prevailed within society.109 In other
words, the Shah came to lack religious legitimacy in the eyes of the
broader public, something which, together with his susceptibility to
foreign agendas and influence, further weakened his position.
  The 1950–3 crisis was spearheaded by just such a collective senti-
ment of resentment against all the ills associated with the Shah and
foreign meddling, personified in the career and leadership of
Mohammad Mosaddeq (1882–1967) and his broad coalition, the
National Front. Mosaddeq realized that the most effective Trojan Horse
and ideal target in Iran was the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil
Company (AIOC), which had effectively emerged as ‘a state within a
state’.110 With the issue of the AIOC as the pinnacle of their national
campaign, Mosaddeq and the National Front won decisive popular
support, which brought Mosaddeq into the prime ministerial office.
From there, he advanced major political efforts to alter the course of
Iran’s political evolution.111 Following a series of politico-military
adventures, foreign politico-diplomatic interference (including by the

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
CIA), military turmoil (including two coups), the Shah fell, and fled,
before returning three days later to ‘consolidate the monarchy’.112
  The reinstatement of royal dictatorship under the institution of the
Shah was accompanied by a deeper US role in Iranian political life. The
Shah managed to rule for another twenty-six years.113 Restoration of
foreign relations came, as in other cases discussed above, with a series
of economic incentives, from better trade agreements, to a ‘fairer’ oil
arrangement with Britain, to US military assistance and aid.
Unprecedented oppression characterized Iranian socio-political life for
the next decade, with the Shah (with US–Israeli assistance) founding
SAVAK, an internal security organization, whose operations ranged
from intrusive and all-encompassing surveillance to systematic vio-
lence and brutal torture of all opposition. Effectively, the people were
stripped of their political freedom and rights for two-and-a-half
decades (1953–79).114 The parties that participated in the ‘elections’
had nominal independence, and the cloak with which the Shah tried to
cover his coercive, repressive, and highly manipulative tactics was
rather transparent. Another crucial parameter was the 1963 preaching
of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which was highly critical of the Shah
and his paramount ally, the USA. Khomeini targeted the Shah on his
 

vulnerabilities: foreign influences, ignoring Islamic beliefs, corruption,

and oppression.115 Khomeini’s 1963 political activism ended with his
arrest by the SAVAK, followed by an explosion of popular pan-Iranian
opposition, which ended in a bloodbath at the hands of the Shah’s mili-
tary. Crucially, Khomeini’s powerful penetrative reach underlined
Iranian society’s deep-rooted Islamic sentiments—a latent force for
any reformist-inspired, anti-imperialist challenger to the Shah and for-
eign politico-economic meddling in Iran.
  Another key dimension of the Shah’s agenda was the constant expan-
sion and modernization of his military power, both for domestic con-
trol and in line with his ambition to establish Iran as a key regional
military actor.116 Iran’s growing oil revenues, and a hyper-privileged
military arrangement with the USA, allowed the Shah to spend incon-
ceivable amounts on defence in the 1970s, with the country emerging
as the fifth most powerful state—militarily—in the world. Needless to
say, after the early post-war Soviet attempts to influence Iranian state-
hood and political evolution, the country was firmly in the Western

239
 THE HIJAZ
Bloc, underlined through this special US–Iranian political—and, in
particular, military—relationship.
  On a different topic, as in Turkey, Iranian population growth in these
years was rapid, and was accompanied by mass urbanization. It is also
worth noting yet another interesting parallel between Turkey and Iran:
the fact that they both shared borders with the Soviet Union, which, in
combination with their ties—military, economic, and therefore politi-
cal—to the USA, brought their governments closer to the Western
Bloc. That being said, extensive US bases in Turkey, and political inter-
ference in Iran—such as the US–CIA role in the early 1950s with the
overthrow of Mosaddeq, also accounted for the notable anti-American-
ism in these two countries.117 Overall, as mentioned in the previous
paragraphs, very few of the Shah’s socio-political reforms found social
support. Exceptions partially included health-care and literacy
reforms, as well as infrastructure developments such as ports, roads,
and railways. But, in most cases, the forced Westernization, moderniza-
tion, industrialization, and secularization that the Shah pursued until
the end of his rule produced negative reactions, on anti-imperialist,
religious, and political grounds. The forces ripe for reform, revival,
and, ultimately, revolution were there constantly, with Islam often pro-
viding the crucial link.
  Arguably, there are notable similarities in the Turkish and the Iranian
experiences, including: (a) the forced top-down secularization; (b)
comparable demographic trends; (c) periodic patterns of social change;
(d) notable income inequality; (e) shared anti-imperial and, later on,
anti-American sentiment; and (f) complex geostrategic positions in the
midst of the West–East tug of war for geo-ideological influence and
power. Unlike Turkey, however, where the forced secularization unrav-
elled through the parallel development of a multi-party democracy and
a parliamentary system coupled with Euro-Atlantic integration,118 in
Iran the Shah’s royal dictatorship never quite made a persistent and
decisive effort to create channels for greater social participation in the
political sphere, nor towards the transition to a more open and inclu-
sive system of governance. Whilst in Turkey the military intervened as
a balancer, with the occasional coups coming at short-term intervals
aimed at safeguarding the efficient functioning of the system, in Iran
the military and security forces were the tool sustaining the Shah’s
dictatorship and keeping society and opposition in check.119

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
The Re-emergence of Islam
— The 1979 Iranian Revolution
The Islamic Revolution in Iran, which led to the removal of the Shah
and paved the way for the establishment of an Islamic republic in this
formerly pivotal Western Middle Eastern ally, is a crucial landmark in
modern regional and global history. The Iranian Revolution and its
immediate aftermath illuminates the picture of Iran’s distinct social,
political, and religious evolution. In the late 1970s the absolutist–
monarchical military dictatorship and Western–secular agenda of the
Shah were ousted through a combination of a wide social backlash
against the top-down and foreign-influenced change advanced by the
regime and a Shi’ite Islamic revival, with the dynamic return of Islam
with tremendous social and political power—generating global politi-
cal shock waves at the end of the 1970s. The Revolution had a powerful
impact on Iranian and Islamic statehood, and continues to offer signifi-
cant insights into present-day Iran. Analysts have suggested that the
socio-political factors discussed in the previous section, coupled with
Islam’s continual and deep-rooted social influence throughout this
secular phase of Iranian statehood, made the 1979 Revolution inevita-
ble.120 Others, however, were taken by greater surprise.121 A series of
comprehensive accounts have analysed the 1979 events and their sig-
nificance in great depth.122 We will not attempt the same here. We will
trace the core dynamics to complete the puzzle of the return of Islam
and its Shi’ite revival in Iran during the last decade of the Cold War.
Seminal events, which took the world by surprise, had a powerful
impact on the Middle East and were reminders of the political power
and ramifications of socio-religious dynamics. It was out of these dra-
matic events that the Shi’ite version of an Islamic state emerged.
  The rapid collapse of the post-war Iranian status quo began in the
early to mid-1970s. Firstly, the oil crisis exposed the dramatic weak-
nesses of the Shah’s political economy model, with its external depen-
dence and stark failure to manage the economy effectively, sustainably,
and inclusively.123 Secondly, there was a reaction to a series of reforms
advanced by the Shah’s regime aimed at tightening the royal dictator-
ship’s grip over society—namely, the abandonment of the two-party
system for the Resurgence Party.124 Thirdly, the image of the regime

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 THE HIJAZ
relying on over sixty thousand foreign professionals,125 advisers, mili-
tary advisers, foreign information services, and security ‘experts’ was
a problem. This multi-layered external dependence came to further
fuel anti-Western and anti-American sentiment. As a fourth factor,
Skocpol adds the ‘pace of change’, urbanization, and the reaction of
students.126 The dominoes begun to fall rapidly in 1977 when a number
of human rights organizations, spearheaded by Amnesty International,
criticized the violent oppression by the regime. Ironically, it was the
Shah’s decision to take a step back and scale back the oppression that
‘emboldened the opposition to speak out’.127, 128 The momentum was
built up rapidly, with strong religious elements and class dimensions,
but also the common denominators of the need to do away with
oppression and repression, and demands for openness and a series of
fundamental freedoms.
  The Freedom Movement, which had been founded in 1961 by
Mehdi Bazargan (1906–95), rose to a prominent position at the begin-
ning of the Revolution. Crucially, its agenda was a secular government
with a distinctly Iranian Islamic social component—since this was a
central element of the national culture, a constituent of cohesion, and,
in Bazargan’s view, a powerful medium for positive social reform and
progress. In mapping the ideational influences here the role of Ali
Shariati (1933–77) could not be overstated.129 Inspired by other inde-
pendence struggles and popular revolts, Shariati advanced a vision of
bottom-up change infused with elements of Iranian patriotism,
Shi’ism, and Marxist–socialist components.130 Shariati’s Islamic-
oriented vision for (counter-)change and revolution was dynamically
taken up by both the Freedom Movement and the wider public. The
third key component in the escalating popular pressure was the mili-
tant wing of the ‘ulama’, spearheaded by the most vocal dissidents
among the clergy. The influence of Khomeini (1902–89) was instru-
mental. He emerged as the paramount figure of the Revolution with
his ‘inspirational force … uncompromising stance and skilful blending
of ideologies’ which ‘drew all the opposition to his side’.131 Even from
exile, the Ayatollah was the most influential critic of the regime, with
tremendous social reach. A series of Khomeini’s lectures were concen-
trated in his highly influential book the Government of the Islamic Jurist.132
In this account, Khomeini effectively proposed an alternate vision, to

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
move away from the shortcomings and the dependence of the Shah’s
rule and move, through revolution, towards a (Shi’ite) Islamic state.
Under this vision, with guidance from the Qur’an and Islamic law, and
drawing heavily from the model community of the Prophet, a different
kind of state—one in line with the fundamental socio-religious and
identity characteristics of Iranian society—could be advanced.
  The game-changing dynamics climaxed in 1978–9, when protests
escalated into full-scale revolution. As demonstrations multiplied, the
regime reacted with a counter-offensive against the instigators and
their main supporting groups. The brutal repression had a high toll,
however—fuelling further reactions and mobilizing further sections of
society. The regime’s efforts to advance political and economic reforms
at the peak of these crises was both ill-conceived and ill-fated.
Recession followed, and the Shah resorted to martial law. The Black
Friday events—in which students, workers, and hundreds of civilians
lost their lives in a horrific bloodbath—were perhaps the point of no
return. The population now flocking to the ranks of Khomeini and the
Freedom Movement. The killings continued, infamously with the
December 1978 Muharram events, which provided the tipping point
for segments of the military, mainly conscripts, who begun to shift
ranks to join the revolution. By that stage the regime was finished; it
had lost the core pillar of its strength, and the gap between it and
society had never been wider. The Shah’s last effort was to appoint a
‘concessionary’ prime minister—a step which was also short-lived,
collapsing under powerful calls by both clergy and people for the com-
plete ousting of the Shah and the regime. By 1 February 1979 the Shah
 

had left Iran for an ‘extended vacation’ and Ayatollah Khomeini had
returned to Iran, triumphant.133
  A sea of socio-political reform, with Islamic revival at its core, rap-
idly unfolded. The Ayatollah named Bazargan his prime minister, but
with nominal power. It was the Council of the Islamic Republic that
held the real power, operating as the paramount administrative and
legislative institution. It had the power to veto the policies of the gov-
ernment, and its interventionism led to Bazargan’s resignation.
Steadily, the Ayatollah maximized the reach of the Council, worked to
diminish the influence of secularists, and established a parallel structure
to the military, the Revolutionary Guard. An era of tribunals and judi-

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 THE HIJAZ
cial processes came to seal Khomeini’s rise to power and consolidate
this path to Islamic statehood through the removal of opposition, for-
mer power brokers, and prominent figures who had served the regime
from positions of influence. A great number of SAVAK agents and mili-
tary officers also met their fate following such tribunals, which sen-
tenced them to death. It was a time of both revival and vengeance.134
  The next steps towards the establishment of the Iranian Islamic
Republic included the Khomeini-founded Islamic Republic Party (IRP)
and the referendum confirming the replacement of monarchy with
Islamic Republic. Constitutional reform, with Islam at its core, came to
seal the ‘government by the jurist’ (vilayat-i faqih), giving Khomeini the
most powerful position in the state: the Islamic jurist in the absence of
the Hidden Imam. It was Khomeini, the ruling jurist, who was to
appoint six out of the twelve members of the Council of Guardians, and
he was to remain in command of the Revolutionary Guard as well as all
the other commanders of the armed forces—army, navy, and air force
respectively. On top of all these extraordinary powers, the Ayatollah had
the task of screening and approving presidential candidates.135 Within a
year the secular pro-Western royal dictatorship had been replaced by an
Islamic republic, ruled directly by the religious establishment.
Constitutional revisions followed, in an attempt to improve the intra-
governmental balances.136 Far-reaching socio-judicial change was
advanced through the implementation of the Ayatollah’s vision, which
underlined the role of ‘divine inspiration’, Islamic laws and values, and
the elevation of men of religion from ‘interpreters of the law’ to ‘admin-
isterers of the law’ and law makers—since ‘only those who had mas-
tered Islamic jurisprudence were qualified to administer the law’.137 An
external catalyst for the consolidation of the new distribution of power
and the Iranian Islamic Republic was found in Iraqi aggression and the
near-decade-long Iraq–Iran war (1980–8) that raged for most of the
1980s, rallying support for Khomeini’s government.138
  Step by step, law by law, through reform, counter-reform, and
Shi’ite Islamic revival, a different version of an Islamic state was born.
The problems were immense: economic, political, social, diplomatic,
internal, and external. But the Ayatollah’s vision, and his statesmanship
in using the problems and challenges to consolidate power, proved
stronger. The social landscape was also an advantageous foundation for
the change Khomeini was promoting. People wanted the return of

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
Islam—Khomenei personified it; people wanted independence from
the USA and foreign influence—he gave it, both practically and sym-
bolically, with diplomatic crises and the US embassy hostage situation;
people wanted greater justice and inclusion—he attempted to achieve
it through Islamic revival and a series of Islamic reforms; people
wanted strength, pride, and freedom—he fought fiercely to push back
Iraqi aggression. Overall, Iran’s post-war politico-religious journey is
a unique and extraordinarily complex experience. The Islamization of
the Iranian society that unfolded in the 1980s was de facto very par-
ticular. It was a distinct current, that led to a unique governmental
structure. We will discuss the Shi’ite revival experience in greater
depth later in following chapter, to trace it within the broader currents
of Islamic revival.139

— The 1979 Siege of Makkah: The Wahhabi Revivalist Response

The late 1970s were a heightened moment of Islamic revivalism, not
restricted to the Shi’ite experience and the Iranian Islamic Revolution.
In particular, 1979 was a pivotal year; it gave new ideas for (cross-sectar-
ian) Islamic statehood—Iran being the epicentre of the wave of revival-
ism.140 There was, however, another seminal highlight that year, from
within the Wahhabi revivalist current, best encapsulated in the Siege of
Makkah by Wahhabi militants—an event that takes us back to Hijaz.141
On 20 November 1979 the global focus was on Tehran, where the US
 

embassy hostage crisis was entering its third week. That day, however,
armed men took Saudi Arabia and the world by surprise, at the very
heart of The Hijaz, seizing Islam’s holiest site, the Grand Mosque in
Makkah—in the process trapping 100,000 people for two weeks and
causing hundreds of deaths. The team of armed Wahhabi extremists who
entered Islam’s holiest site called for the overthrow of the House of Saud,
the country’s ruling dynasty. A deep, austere Wahhabi–revivalist current
was threatening stability at the heart of Saudi Arabia and the Muslim
Holy Lands. In many ways, this was the Wahhabi response to the pre-
dominantly Shi’ite Islamic revivalism that was unfolding in the broader
neighbourhood, as well as a series of other revivalist currents, which
were pressing for change across an array of Islamic nations.
  The issue of seizing control of Islam’s holiest sites, this idea of ‘cap-
turing the Islamic Holy Lands’, cuts deeper. It carries a distinct signifi-

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 THE HIJAZ
cance and symbolism. As we shall discuss later, it is not by chance that
this objective has been at the very core of the dark ambitions of jihadi
terrorist actors such as DA’ISH. It was no happenstance that the
 

Wahhabi extremists framed their actions and bid for regime change in
deeply symbolic religious terms—namely, the idea that one of the lead-
ers, Mohammed Abdullah al-Qahtani, was the ‘redeemer of Islam’, the
Mahdi, who had come to rid the country of corrupt practices, depen-
dencies, and alliances that are against core Islamic values. The master-
mind of the siege, Juhayman al-Otaybi, was a member of one of the
leading Najdi families that were part of the Ikhwan. The extremists had
timed their operations to coincide with the first day of the year 1400,
to tie it with the tradition of the mujaddid (one who brings renewal or
revival), suggesting that the leader was to lead an austere, Wahhabi
Sunni revival to purify Islam. As with other jihadi currents, according to
Trofimov, the Mahdi’s key pursuit was to ‘cleanse the Muslim world
from its impurities brought in by the Westerners’.142 By violating the
sacred site with violence, hostage situations, and killings, the extremists
managed to catch the Saudi security forces off guard. It took weeks
before the Saudi military with French, Jordanian and Pakistani Special
Forces assistance managed to regain control and end the crisis. Overall,
the Saudi government had to mobilize heavy military resources, and the
overall death toll possibly exceeded the one thousand mark.143
Moreover, in parallel to the events unfolding at the heart of The Hijaz,
a Shi’ite minority was launching a revolt in the Hasa province of the
Kingdom, later known as the Qatif Uprising.144 Throughout Saudi
Arabia, 1979 was a year of Islamic revolution and tension, with compet-
ing efforts at Islamic revival. It is important to note that, following the
successful termination of the Siege of Makkah, the government of Saudi
Arabia responded by tightening Islamic law and increasing the powers
of the Wahhabi religious establishment and the ‘ulama’.145 On the whole,
1979 was culmination; a watershed year for the sweeping return of
(political) Islam, both regionally and globally.

Above Statehood:The First Efforts at Regionalism

Further to the different national post-Second World War experiences
of statehood, the countries of the wider Middle East made variable

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attempts at regional cooperation and integration. We briefly discuss the
main ones here, in the chronological order in which they emerged. We
keep the analysis very short here, as we will be revisiting several of
these points in Chapter 9, where we propose a way forward for greater
regional cooperation on the basis of a positive integrative vision, linked
to an empowered, more autonomous, and internationalized Hijaz.
  Before initiating this short tour de force of the first efforts at
regional cooperation and integration in the post-war MENA context,
however, it is worth highlighting some crucial examples of state build-
ing through voluntary unions. We have discussed earlier the short-lived
pan-Arab attempts to build a single, unified state entity: principally, the
1958–61 United Arab Republic—the brief Egyptian–Syrian union;
and, the even more short-lived Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan,
which collapsed within six months. In the Persian Gulf however, the
Trucial shaykhdoms, in an impressive example of pooled sovereignty
for the attainment of greater common security and prosperity, replaced
their former sub-statehood with a dynamic union. There was a union
between six emirates at first: Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, al-
Quwain, and Fujairah; and then seven, with the joining of Ras al-
Khaimah.146 The United Arab Emirates (UAE) represents by far the
most successful and resilient example of Arab experimentation with
federalism. The drivers for this union were principally security consid-
erations and economic interests. In other words, the catalyst was the
fear of external threats and the drive for survival.147 The 1968 decision
by Britain to absolve of all of its responsibilities east of Suez by 1971
was the external catalyst.148 Following their independence, these
shaykhdoms, unequal in size, power, population, and wealth, realized
that they could only maintain their independence by joining forces.
While initially Saudi Arabia presented the biggest external challenge,
following the 1979 Iranian Revolution Iran also came to top the secu-
rity calculus of the Emirates.149 All in all, in what is one of the most
interesting experiences of Arab and MENA statehood, the UAE was
born out of the pursuit of post-independence security, and a common
effort to attain a better regional and global standing. This distinct state-
building journey clearly demonstrated that Middle East statehood goes
beyond force and coercion.

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 THE HIJAZ
— The League of Arab States (LAS)
One of the most notable efforts at regional cooperation started in
1945, with the official founding of the League of Arab States (LAS) or
Arab League, headquartered in Cairo. It started with a small core of
Arab states, six plus one in a way: Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, North Yemen,
Saudi Arabia, Transjordan, and Palestine.150 A number of key treaties
were signed in the following years, including: the Cultural Treaty; the
Joint Defence and Economic Cooperation Treaty; and the establish-
ment of the Economic and Social Council. By 1958 the League had
been joined by Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Sudan. Crucially, the UN
recognized the League the same year, giving it responsibility for edu-
cation, science, and culture in the Arab region. In the next two
decades the League kept expanding its competencies and its member-
ship; it held its first summit in 1964, and by 1977 it consisted of fif-
teen members.151 Earlier in this chapter we discussed the politico-
ideological differences and variable statehood experiences of the
League’s member states, as well as the different Cold War standpoints
each adopted. While these differences were at times reflected in the
context of the League, its major crisis concerned Egypt’s relations
with Israel, rather than Cold War politics.152 The next major crisis
came with the US-led first Gulf War and divisions within the League
regarding the acceptability of this intervention.153 In spite of the cri-
ses, divisions, and political stalemates that the League has had to
grapple with in its seven decades of existence, it has shown consider-
able resilience. In cases where unity was reached among its members,
it proved a reliable regional actor, with a notable say in the spheres of
economics, culture, and security. The role of the League in the inter-
vention in Libya is a case in point, facilitating a decision at the UN
level, and also actively supporting the peace-enforcement opera-
tion.145 Overall, the Arab League, with its influential Secretariat and
Secretary General, its bi-annual high-level meetings, and array of
instruments and targeted forums for multi-layered dialogue, has
proved a notable platform for regional cooperation. By 2016 the
League had twenty-two members.155

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
— The Maghreb Arab Union (MAU)
The first efforts to build deeper ties and cooperation between the
Maghreb states effectively started before their independence, with the
setting up of the Committee for the Liberation of the Maghreb in
1948. Following their independence, in 1964 Tunisia, Libya, Morocco,
and Algeria held the first Conference of Maghreb Economic Ministers,
which led to the creation of the Maghreb Permanent Consultative
Council, whose chief objective was ‘to coordinate and harmonise the
development plans of the four countries as well as interregional trade
to form a block vis-à-vis the EU’.156 These notable first attempts at
enhancing regional cooperation, however, had not helped achieve real
success at political and economic deepening in the Maghreb until the
late 1980s and early 1990s, when the countries of the region faced
serious external pressure posed by the imminent completion of the
European Single Market. A major ‘thorn’ complicating regional inte-
gration had been the decades-long competition between Morocco and
Algeria over the Western Sahara dispute. UN-led diplomatic initiatives
and mediation by some key Arab nations facilitated the creation of a
more formal cooperation initiative in the 1980s. Ultimately, in
February 1989, the heads of state of Algeria, Libya, Mauritania,
Morocco, and Tunisia founded the Maghreb Arab Union (MAU).157 The
MAU gave its member states greater weight in negotiating their trade
arrangements with the EU. It also helped advance the freer movement
 

of people, goods, and services; it helped revise customs provisions; and

it offered the possibility of ‘a single currency for inter-Maghreb
trade’.158 The Union also assisted its member states to trade more with
one another, with intra-MAU trade doubling. Overall, however, the
MAU proved a rather fragile organization and a fairly limited vehicle
for regional integration.159

— The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries

(OPEC)
  Following the discovery of oil in several Middle Eastern countries in
the 1940s and 1950s, the difficult global political economy of the oil
market soon became a pressing matter for several oil-producing

249
 THE HIJAZ
nations. In 1960, in an attempt to better ‘coordinate and unify the
petroleum policies of its Member Countries and ensure the stabiliza-
tion of oil markets in order to secure an efficient, economic and regu-
lar supply of petroleum to consumers, a steady income to producers
and a fair return on capital for those investing in the petroleum indus-
try’,160 Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela proceeded with
the founding of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC), a permanent intergovernmental organization
whose Secretariat is headquartered in Vienna.161 As discussed earlier,
several of the key ‘national’ oil-producing companies of the MENA
states were largely controlled by foreign private firms. In response to
skewed arrangements which prevented the oil-producing nations from
maximizing their profits, in 1968 the organization, in a powerful joint
statement, underlined the ‘inalienable right of all countries to exercise
permanent sovereignty over their natural resources in the interest of
their national development’.162 OPEC countries pressed individually
and collectively for the independent management of their oil wealth.163
  The 1970s was the decade when OPEC showed its power, and the
world realized the critical importance of stability in the market for
core commodities—and especially oil. Specifically, the OPEC member
states gained fuller control of their domestic petroleum industries in
this period, establishing a powerful say in the global pricing of crude
oil. The first, and perhaps highest-impact, intervention by OPEC came
in 1973, during the Arab–Israeli war. OPEC’s Arab members imposed
an embargo against the USA, in retaliation for latter’s decision to re-
supply the Israeli military forces. Simultaneously, the move, which
sharply increased the price of crude oil and led to a major energy cri-
sis, also served to maximize Arab leverage in the post-war peace nego-
tiations. A similar, but not orchestrated, episode of oil-market turbu-
lence occurred in 1979, with the culmination of the Iranian Revolution,
where OPEC tried to take measures to stabilize the markets and
reduce volatility. By 1968 OPEC counted ten members, thirteen by
1975, and reached its peak of fifteen in the late 2010s. While the 1980s
and 1990s were years of exponential growth in the West, the oil market
generally fluctuated on the lower end, with a major crash hitting the
OPEC countries hard in 1986. As exemplified in the 2000s and the
2010s, the OPEC member states developed better mechanisms, poli-

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
cies, and know-how in the navigation of the global oil markets together,
advancing collective efforts to safeguard overall stability and ensure an
optimal price level. Even though critical observers have dismissed
OPEC as just a cartel of the oil producers, its record has been more
mixed, including efforts at advancing international development, inter-
national policy making and agenda setting, efforts to maintain market
stability, and, of course, the advancement of the interests of the oil-
producing countries.164

— The Organisation of the Islamic Conference or Organisation

of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)
  The OIC was founded in 1969 by twenty-four predominantly
Muslim states. The Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers (ICFM)
established the organization’s permanent Secretariat in Jeddah. In a
way, the most powerful states of the region had become home to the
two Secretariats: LAS in Egypt and OIC in Saudi Arabia. The core
objective of the OIC has been to advance the brotherly relations, coop-
eration, and solidarity between its member states. By 1974 the OIC
had experienced a notable institutional expansion with the inclusion of
an Islamic Solidarity Fund, as well as the core of elements that was to
become the OIC’s Islamic Commission for Economic, Cultural and
Social Affairs. If the LAS is, in a way, ‘distinctly Arab’, the OIC is ‘dis-
tinctly Islamic’, with the whole narrative surrounding its activities
delineated in Islamic terms. Crucially, the OIC holds itself to be the
collective voice of the umma and the promoter of the collective global
interests of Muslims. The following passages from its official presenta-
tion are indicative:
The Organization has the singular honor to galvanize the Ummah into
a unified body and have actively represented the Muslims by espousing
all causes close to the hearts of over 1.5 billion Muslims of the world.
The Organization has consultative and cooperative relations with the
UN and other inter-governmental organizations to protect the vital
interests of the Muslims and to work for the settlement of conflicts and
disputes involving Member States. In safeguarding the true values of
Islam and the Muslims, the organization has taken various steps to
remove misperceptions and have strongly advocated elimination of

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 THE HIJAZ
discrimination against the Muslims in all forms and manifestations. …
[To achieve this, it advances the] promotion of tolerance and modera-
tion, modernization, extensive reforms in all spheres of activities
including science and technology, education, trade enhancement, and
emphasizes good governance and promotion of human rights in the
Muslim world, especially with regard to rights of children, women and
elderly and the family values enshrined by Islam.165
  There are a number of important highlights in the course of the
OIC’s history. In the early 1980s it spearheaded a series of efforts to
pressure Israel to liberate Palestine (and Jerusalem) through boycotts
and multi-faceted support for the Palestinians.166 In the late 1980s and
the 1990s, the organization made a series of interventions on the inter-
national stage to (among others): (a) avert the sale of arms to Iran and
Iraq; (b) re-define terrorism (drawing a distinction with legitimate
freedom-fighters); (c) condemn Iraqi aggression against Kuwait; and (d)
protect the lives of (especially Bosnian) Muslims in the context of the
Yugoslav wars. Overall, the OIC has held a series of generally steady
positions: staunch and vocal supporter of Muslim interests globally;
strong support for Palestine and fierce criticism of Israel; and caution
when it comes to generalizations regarding terrorism and extremism,
yet highly critical of aggression and horrific acts of terrorism (such as
Iraqi aggression and 9/11). In 2008 the OIC had fifty-seven members,
from four continents, fifty-six of which were also UN members.167 In
2009 it upgraded its framework of cooperation with the LAS. While  

principally promoting the interest of Islamic states, the OIC’s world-

view has been considerably inclusive and open, encouraging wider dia-
logue and understanding between different cultures and traditions.168

— The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)

The last major regional cooperation initiative we briefly discuss here
is the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Founded in 1981, two years
after the Iranian Revolution, the GCC originally consisted of the
Persian Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE),
Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman. At the very core of the initiative
lay a pursuit of deeper economic—and also military—cooperation
between these neighbouring Gulf states. Beyond the efforts to remove

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
economic barriers and advance greater harmony across a series of
areas and spheres—from trade and finance to tourism and invest-
ments—the GCC also adopted a powerful political agenda, especially
with respect to the Middle East question and broader regional peace
and stability, underlining the fact that conflicts in the region are a
threat to the member states in the Gulf, and tying their security to the
establishment of peace between Palestine and Israel. Iran’s ambitions
to establish a foothold in the Gulf,169 and its military performance in
the war with Iraq, were a major catalyst for bolstering defence capa-
bilities among the GCC countries.170 It was against this backdrop that
the GCC states advanced the crucial Peninsula Shield Force, a collec-
tive security platform to maximize Gulf security against external
threats (principally Iran).171
  The main decision-making body of the organization is the Annual
Summit, which is held at head-of-state level.172 In the course of the
past thirty-seven years each summit has attempted to deepen regional
integration through small steps in the areas where convergence seems
easier, facilitated by common interests and prospects. The areas of
joint investments and major infrastructure projects, as well as consoli-
dation in the economic sphere—including a customs union, greater
labour mobility, and a common market (advanced decisively in the
2010s)—have strengthened considerably over time. In the politico-
military sphere, cooperation has varied historically, with collective
security commitments and common strategies coming to the fore
when external challenges seem more pressing. In the era of counter-
terrorism, and under international pressures, the GCC countries have
adopted policies and far-reaching joint statements, committing to a
more coordinated response to tackle the phenomenon. In recent
times, the epicentre of external security has shifted from the Arab–
Israeli conflict to the question of Iran’s ambitions and role in fuelling
sectarian tensions in places such as Yemen, as well as the rise and far-
reaching agenda of DA’ISH, whose eradication has featured in recent
GCC Summit Conclusions.
  Arguably, the GCC, by reason of its smaller membership and the
similarities among its member states—the structure of their economies,
their asymmetries, their challenges, and their threat perception—has
managed to make considerable progress over the course of the past
three-and-a-half decades.173 In other words, the GCC arguably provides

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 THE HIJAZ
perhaps the most promising starting point for either a completely new
or a ‘revamped and expanded’ positive integrative vision for the region.
In a move which may surprise some, we will argue that the beginnings
of this new and greater regional integration effort might be best served
through a loose platform, with the GCC and The Hijaz at its core: an
APEC-like structure, which would start by enhancing cooperation in
less contentious areas and steadily expand into more complicated
spheres. Such a loose structure would not be constrained by geography
or politics, and would have the potential of encompassing other actors
outside the immediate region but of great importance to it.174

The Superpowers and the Cold War

In the Middle East context the superpowers attempted to pursue their

interests by forming blocs against each other or by establishing patron–
client relationships with the chosen instruments of their regional influ-
ence. … Neither succeeded in fulfilling its aim completely. … Partly
because both Washington and Moscow ignored, or failed to understand,
the dynamics of regional politics; and partly because the respective
clients were able to extract more from their patrons than vice versa,
and to play them off against each other.175
  As discussed earlier, the impact of the Cold War was keenly felt in
the Middle East. With the exception of Turkey, however, no country of
the MENA region ever entered formally one of the two collective secu-
rity umbrellas: the Warsaw Pact or NATO. The USSR generally sup-
 

ported single-party authoritarian regimes with leftist–socialist charac-

teristics. The USA generally supported liberal or illiberal monarchies
and regimes which were, or became, dependent on US military and
economic assistance. The USA, driven by the strategy of containment,
actively sought candidate states which could be considered buffers to
prevent any further expansion of the Soviet sphere and provide an
additional layer of defence, both geostrategically and in the ideational
sphere. Broadly speaking, the USSR and the USA had conflicting agen-
das in the Middle East. The USSR wanted to penetrate the region and
keep tensions and antagonisms running (but not escalate them); and it
generally perceived controlled instability and uncertainty as the most
advantageous context through which it could perpetuate its regional

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
influence.176 The USA, on the other hand, was determined to keep the
Soviets outside the greater Middle East,177 deny them strategic access
and alliances, prevent conditions favouring Soviet ambitions, and pro-
tect the interests of its paramount allies in the region.178
  There are interesting broad parallels to observe. In the same way as
the USA sought strategic bases in the Middle East—such as those in
Turkey, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia—the USSR also sought to entrench
its global power-projection capacity through privileged access to a
series of strategic Middle Eastern ports, principally in Egypt (UAR),
and later on, with this first option off the table, Tartus and Latakia in
Syria. Crucially, this point has implications for the Syrian crisis (2010s),
and adds context to the Russian position. It helps explain Russia’s sup-
port for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, which is principally driven
by geopolitical and geostrategic considerations. It has been argued that
the USSR had sought to establish its naval superpower status in the
Mediterranean through this network of naval bases that extended from
the Black Sea and the Caucasus to the Eastern Mediterranean, Syria,
Egypt,Yemen, Libya, Ethiopia, and Tunisia. Arguably, however, the US–
NATO strategic positioning in the wider region remained deeper
throughout the greater part of the Cold War. A crucial moment when
the Middle East became an epicentre of global attention and height-
ened Cold War tensions was the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and
the UAR (Egypt and Syria) and Jordan. The USSR, however, which had
been supporting (arming) Syria and Egypt, initially took a step back,
since it did not wish to prolong the war. That being said, the Soviets did
threaten direct military engagement if Israel did not to halt its counter-
attack into Syria, issuing multiple warnings (both via the UN and
through bilateral and other channels).
Although it was true (especially in the Gulf) that ‘both nationalism and
Islam militated against Communism’, the Soviet Union did not always
appear to all Arab countries as primarily a communist power but
increasingly as the provider of arms, aid and diplomatic support, and
above all as their only reinsurance against Israel. Even some of those
who were worried about Soviet imperialism were no less concerned
about the western variety, and took refuge in ‘neutralism’.179
  Nationalist, anti-imperialist, anti-‘foreign influence’, and anti-Israel,
as well as socialist–leftist ideologies and sentiments provided an advan-

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 THE HIJAZ
tageous landscape for Soviet efforts to extend a hand of friendship and
a bridge of assistance, principally through the sale of military hardware
and other forms of security and economic assistance. Egypt, Iraq, and
Syria were prime candidates for the establishment of such ties in the
context of pan-Arabism and authoritarian single-party statehood. Post-
independence Yemen and Gaddafi’s Libya also came to see ties with the
USSR as advantageous. Crucially, however, despite Soviet influence and
assistance, none of these countries established an Eastern Bloc-style
communist state.180 Notably, the USSR had found ways to gain access
to US allies too, with its economic ties to the US-backed Iranian Shah
being a case in point.181 Therefore, 1979 was a landmark year for
Soviet–US Cold War policy. The crucial US ally, Iran, had its pro-West-
ern, secular royal dictator replaced with a theocratic Islamic
Republic—one riding an anti-Western and anti-American wave of
popular support. The ally was now a thorn in the side. Seen through the
Cold War lens, America’s inability to protect a strategic ally, and his
replacement by an anti-American regime, was certainly a setback for
US Cold War policy; it gave the wrong signals to other Western-aligned
regimes across the globe. The Soviet Nemesis, and, ultimately, Tisis,
was also associated with events that originated in 1979: the invasion of
Afghanistan. Lucas provides context vis-à-vis the Soviet calculations
and frames their dilemma comparatively: ‘Moscow was faced with the
dilemma of supporting a proxy regime at the risk of unwelcome
involvement, or abandoning it and signalling to the Soviets’ friends in
the area precisely what the Americans were then signalling to theirs by
abandoning the Shah.’182
  The USSR waged war on neighbouring Afghanistan to help a newly
established friendly regime consolidate power, in the USSR’s first
direct involvement in the wider MENA region, which lasted nine years
and claimed the lives of over a million civilians, 90,000 Mujahideen
fighters, 18,000 Afghan troops and over 14,000 Soviet soldiers. As
Taylor aptly observed: ‘Civil war raged after the [Soviet] withdrawal,
setting the stage for the Taliban’s takeover of the country in 1996.’183
While there is no linear ‘trail’, there are powerful connections and
links between the Mujahideen, the Taliban, al-Qaida, and, arguably,
DA’ISH. Starting with a more in-depth discussion of the Soviet inva-
 

sion and occupation of Afghanistan in the sunset years of the Cold War

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
and its aftermath, we will begin our attempt to deconstruct the con-
nections and conditions that enabled the rise of the above-mentioned
terrorist groups. Overall, the Cold War era was often reminiscent of
the colonial and imperial experience. In the case of the Middle East, it
often seemed as if the two blocs engaged in a form of ‘imperialism
through other means’. However, arguably, the countries of the wider
MENA, despite of their often difficult internal statehood experiences,
managed to navigate the Cold War era with greater deftness than in the
first half of the twentieth century. The Cold War pressures on state-
hood, however, were notable, given the incessant external calculations,
schemes, and gambles of the competing blocs, and their attempts to
advantageously shape the Middle East geopolitical milieu.

The SovietWar in Afghanistan:The Mujahideen

[The invasion of Afghanistan is] the gravest threat to world peace since
World War II.184
US President Jimmy Carter, 1979
  Close to four decades have passed since the 1979 invasion of
Afghanistan, and the series of pivotal questions raised by Galster in
1990 and then in 2001 are still awaiting full answers:
How is it that this underdeveloped, tribal-based country, tucked deep
inside the rugged crossroads of Asia and deemed strategically insignifi-
cant by the United States for decades, became a battleground for the
bloodiest superpower proxy war of the 1980s? What stimulated the
United States to develop a sophisticated insurgency support operation
for a rebellion led by Islamic religious leaders and fought by mountain
tribesmen? What was the nature of the debate among U.S. officials and
 

congressmen as to what the rebels, beset with ethnic, tribal and per-
sonal rivalries, could accomplish against the armed forces of the Soviet
Union? What effect did this war have on Pakistan, the most important
U.S. ally in South Asia, which played a crucial role in the war by provid-
 

ing sanctuary for the rebels …? And what lessons have the U.S. intel-
 

ligence and defense communities drawn from the Afghan conflict and
applied to the emerging U.S. strategic doctrine of ‘Low-Intensity
 

Warfare’? Why did the Soviet Union spend ten years, billions of dollars
and 15–20,000 lives trying to prop up a government that seemed con-
stantly on the verge of collapse? Was Moscow’s intervention, as some

257
 THE HIJAZ
have claimed, originally part of a grand design to seize oil fields and
warm water ports in the Persian Gulf region, or merely a move to
protect a new socialist government in a country contiguous to its sensi-
tive southern border?185
  We will not attempt to answer these crucial questions here. Some,
Galster himself answers in between the lines above; some, we briefly
address below from our perspective and through our particular lens of
analysis. Others will be discussed in greater depth in the ‘ideological
trail’ discussion in the following chapter. We will, however, quickly
discuss here the developments of the late 1970s and the 1980s to set
the background for the subsequent deeper discussions on ideology,
‘negative space’, and ‘Islamic’ terrorism. The latter’s latest phase of
internationalization can indeed be traced to the seminal events that
unfolded in the period of the Afghan–Soviet war and the simultaneous
US–Soviet ‘proxy war’. The events that unfolded in Afghanistan in the
late 1970s and 1980s are rooted in the nearly four-decade-long Soviet
economic and military support for the country, which was formalized
in a ‘friendship’ treaty between the USSR and Afghanistan in 1978,
once the Marxist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA)
rose to power in Kabul through a coup. Concurrently, in the rural areas
and the provinces, an Islamic–conservative insurgency—also split
along ethnic lines—was rapidly building up.186 Chaos, instability, and
numerous domestic and diplomatic crises and infighting ensued, with
the USSR maximizing its aid and many-sided assistance to its new ally,
and the rest of the world dazed by the rapid changes unfolding in Iran
and Afghanistan. Further to the targeting of Western diplomats in Iran,
the kidnapping and subsequent killing of the US ambassador in
Afghanistan led to the swift scaling down of the US presence, and a
tactical withdrawal from the country.
  The insurgents did not hesitate to kill Soviet citizens and personnel
on the ground. PDP calls for Soviet assistance on the ground through
direct involvement soon climaxed. Faced with the dilemma of losing
their important ally to an Islamist militant movement and facing a ‘stra-
tegic loss’ similar to that the USA was experiencing in Iran, the Soviets
chose differently. They invaded on 24 December 1979, using the Soviet–
 

Afghan Friendship Treaty as a pretext. Through a massive military airlift

they swiftly secured Kabul, installing Babrak Karmal, head of the PDPA,

258
 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
as head of government. The full range of Soviet forces187 invaded
Afghanistan’s rebellious provinces from the north of the country. It was
the only time the USSR invaded territories outside the Eastern Bloc,
and was a highlight in the course of the Cold War, which largely left the
USSR isolated in the long war that ensued.188 The move alienated several
Soviet allies in the Middle East, with Iraq condemning the invasion. The
image of Soviet tanks rolling into a predominantly Muslim nation, to
help impose PDPA rule against the popular will, was met with severe
condemnation in the Islamic world and internationally.
  While in Cold War terms the Soviet effort was mainly symbolic,189
in the wider Middle Eastern context the Soviet invasion had a cataclys-
mic effect, perhaps only comparable to the tragic British imperial mis-
calculation in the inter-war period which allowed the sweeping expan-
sion of the ‘negative space’—with the advent of absolutist Wahhabi
ideo-political influence and the silencing of moderate reformist voices
in the heart of Islam, The Hijaz.190 The presence of Soviet forces (com-
munists and unbelievers) on Afghan soil, fighting the Islamic militant
resistance, unleashed a tremendous counter-wave of jihad, Muslim
‘Holy War’, embodied dynamically by the Mujahideen fighters. It soon
gained wider Islamic support. Pandora’s Box had opened, and the
internationalization of jihad has never been checked since.191 The wide,
deep-rooted popular resistance was proving impossible to quell over
the course of the protracted fighting. US assistance found channels,
primarily through Pakistan,192 to reach the Mujahideen fighters. Soon
the CIA was helping the jihadi rebels adapt their effective guerrilla
warfare to incorporate modern weaponry and tactics to their arsenal,
while feeding them intelligence and hardware.193 Cogan summed up
the multi-layered and escalating US strategic involvement in the fol-
lowing terms:
The United States supplied funds, weapons and general supervision.
Saudi Arabia194 matched United States financial contributions, and
China’s government sold and donated weapons. But the dominant
operational role on the front lines belonged to Pakistan’s ISI (the
Interservices Intelligence Directorate), which insisted on control.195
  The US involvement in Afghanistan was diachronically complex.196
America had a clear understanding of the paramount importance of
maintaining privileged access to the Middle East, and especially its oil

259
 THE HIJAZ
reserves, the largest in the world, which provided fuel for the world
economy and a core resource for the booming of US private enter-
prise. While Afghanistan itself was not geo-economically or geopoliti-
cally the most significant regional actor, other states in the wider
region, including neighbouring Pakistan,197 were. And they too were
closely watching the developments in this new epicentre of geostrate-
gic competition between the superpowers. Crucially, the USA had
extensive first-hand experience of protracted military engagements,
their economic implications, and the difficulty of defining and achiev-
ing victory—predominantly in Vietnam. The USA also knew that con-
flicts of this kind tend to become situations where everyone is the
enemy, with large segments of society prepared to take up arms, and
where no endgame can be clearly identified. The Western superpower
wasted no time therefore in finding groups happy to benefit from US
resources, weaponry, technology, or information and intelligence.198
From 1985 onwards, when their arsenal was enriched with top-quality
US stinger surface-to-air missile launchers on top of the RPG-7 anti-
tank grenade launchers, the Afghan Mujahideen fighters were able to
deal decisive damage to the Soviet forces. The downing of Soviet heli-
copters and aircrafts became systematic.199 Coll summarized this tacti-
cal and operational US support for the Mujahideen and its escalation in
the 1985–6 period:
Beginning in 1985, the CIA supplied mujaheddin rebels with extensive
satellite reconnaissance data of Soviet targets on the Afghan battlefield,
plans for military operations based on the satellite intelligence, inter-
cepts of Soviet communications, secret communications networks for
the rebels, delayed timing devices for tons of C-4 plastic explosives for
urban sabotage and sophisticated guerrilla attacks, long-range sniper
rifles, a targeting device for mortars that was linked to a U.S. Navy
 

satellite, wire-guided anti-tank missiles, and other equipment. The

move to upgrade aid to the mujaheddin roughly coincided with the
well-known decision in 1986 to provide the mujaheddin with sophisti-
cated, U.S.-made Stinger antiaircraft missiles…. In all, the United
States funnelled more than $2 billion200 in guns and money to the muja-
heddin during the 1980s, according to U.S. officials. It was the largest
 

covert action program since World War II.201

  The issue, however, was that this strategy drastically accelerated the
growth in power and influence of the jihadi rebels. Not only were the

260
 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
Islamic insurgents gaining ground, dealing serious damage to the Soviet
forces and draining the Eastern superpower’s resources, they were also
emerging as anti-imperialist heroes. They were gaining power, visibil-
ity, and wider legitimacy; it was felt that their nationalist independence
struggle was just, and that they were effectively heroic freedom-fight-
ers pitted against an occupying army with a neo-imperialist agenda.
Coll captures this powerfully in discussing CIA director William Casey
(1981–7), whose visit to Islamabad was a strategic turning point, as he
spent time overseeing CIA-led training of Mujahideen rebels.202 He
oversaw the training camps, and encouraged the use of propaganda and
selected Islamic texts to fuel militant Islamist sentiment. The USA was
actively pursuing the escalation of jihad and its diffusion, seeking to
strengthen the link between the nationalist liberation struggle and
Islamic extremist jihad symbolisms.203 Crucially, after Casey’s visit
Pakistani officials were greatly emboldened, and, benefiting from US
military intelligence, they escalated the anti-Soviet strategy further,
funnelling ‘CIA supplies for scattered strikes against military installa-
tions, factories and storage depots within Soviet territory’ as well as
more targeted strikes aimed at ‘killing Russian military officers’.204
Whether it was pure miscalculation, short-sightedness, inability to
comprehend the dynamics unleashed, or simple dogmatic ‘entrapment’
within the US Cold War ‘ABC’ strategy,205 US policy towards Afghan
jihadi fighters paved the way for the rise of the Taliban and a new era of
global jihadi terrorism that would come to harm the USA, its citizens,
and its interests in the Middle East and beyond in the decades that
followed. Andrew Hartman summarized this aptly in 2002:
America’s response [to the Soviet invasion]—to finance and arm the
most fundamental and dangerous Muslims that could be rounded up—
is a decision that continues to shake the world. The possibilities of the
resulting ‘blowback’—in the form of well-documented terror and the
not so well-known heroin trade—were ignored in the drive to support
those who would struggle against Soviet-dominated communism. …
The cold calculus of US decision-makers and the negative effects on the
people of Afghanistan and beyond [merit detailed analysis]. The rise of
the Taliban can be directly attributed to this process.206
  Crucially, the war in Afghanistan and the Soviet occupation had a
profound impact on neighbouring countries, such as pivotal US ally

261
 THE HIJAZ
Pakistan, which suffered from the resulting instability and the refugee
burden, but was also called upon to assist the rebels.207 As we shall see
in the following chapter, the radical ideas that fuelled the anti-Soviet
jihad did not stop there; nor did the jihadis embrace more moderate
views after the end of the war. A complex set of ideo-religious inter-
pretations and worldviews were born out of the Afghanistan conflict.
They were later on reinterpreted and adapted by the likes of the
Taliban, al-Qaida, and DA’ISH, in different forms—but with compa-
rable points of origin, namely, the ‘negative space’, ideo-religious abso-
lutism, and a demonization of tolerant and moderate approaches
towards other Islamic schools of thought, different theo-ideological
currents, diverse cultures, and openness. In terms of the Cold War
itself, despite some earlier predictions that this would be the beginning
of a new era where the USSR would be gaining ground, exactly the
opposite happened. The Afghan war was a catalyst for the USSR’s col-
lapse.208 Arguably, the end-result of the Soviet-Afghan war was a pre-
dominantly US-guided victory. The role of the CIA and of Pakistan
cannot be discounted. Cogan tried to simplify and summarize the
implications of a wave of Islamic revivalism and fundamentalism that
climaxed in the 1970s:
The Soviets had the misfortune to run up against a tide of Islamic reviv-
alism that began to sweep the Muslim world in the 1970s. (The United
States was also a victim of Islamic fundamentalism. … The Shiites of
Iran. The Soviet Union’s antagonists were Sunnis. These are very differ-
ent expressions of Islam. … Fundamentalism … is a slightly misleading
term for a movement that is less concerned about the observance of
religious law for its own sake than as the basis for an alternative to a
system based on Western values. A better term is Islamism.) It was,
therefore, a particularly propitious moment for contesting the presence
of a foreign power in a Muslim country. The Afghan resistance to the
Soviet presence was propelled by Islamism, as well as by nationalism.
… The partnership, if you will, between the United States and the
Afghan resistance was of limited duration. … The long-range aims of a
country in which Islamists … have a say … could not be, wholly com-
patible with the aims of a Western nation. The primary goal of Islamism
is to get rid of, or at least lessen, Western influence.209
  Further to the limited ‘read’ of the ideo-religious landscape of
Afghanistan and the region, the USA and the USSR both demonstrated

262
 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
a rather incomplete understanding of the complex social landscape of
Afghan society: the segmentation, fragmentation, factionalism, tribal
elements, the artificiality of the state itself,210 the numerous ethnic
groups and deep-cutting complexities and divisions.211 Nor did they
demonstrate an understanding of the prevailing socio-transformative
forces within Afghanistan, which revolved around competing visions of
modernization (principally ‘communization’ and ‘Islamization’).212

The Rise of the Taliban

As mentioned earlier, in the aftermath of the Mujahideen victory, chaos
and instability ensued in Afghanistan. American and Soviet assistance
varied after the withdrawal of the Soviet forces. Extensive fighting
continued between different Mujahideen groups and factions for
years,213 as different actors competed for the control of the Afghan
republic. The Taliban (Pashto: ‘students’) were formed in the early
1990s by an Afghan, predominantly Pashtun, faction of the Mujahideen.
The movement most likely emerged in northern Pakistan,214 ‘from
Islamic madrasahs (seminaries) who were living as refugees in
Pakistan’.215 By some accounts, the assistance provided to the Taliban
by the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence agency (ISI) was instrumen-
tal.216 The radical conservative Islamic movement gained wide support
by committing to end the factional conflicts among the warring
Mujahideen groups and establish peace, stability, and the rule of Islamic
law. This largely explains their initial popularity.217 Much like the
advent of DA’ISH in the early 2010s, the ‘Taliban imposed its brand of
justice as it consolidated territorial control’.218 Laub summarized the
absolutist ideo-religious dogma advanced by the Taliban:
Taliban jurisprudence was drawn from the Pashtuns’ pre-Islamic tribal
code and interpretations of sharia colored by the austere Wahhabi doc-
trines of the madrassas’ Saudi benefactors. … Its Ministry for the
Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice enforced prohibitions on
behavior the Taliban deemed un-Islamic, requiring women to wear the
head-to-toe burqa, or chadri; banning music and television; and jailing
men whose beards it deemed too short.219
  Laub’s observations are further complemented by Qureshi, who
aptly links the Soviet–Afghan war and its far-reaching implications with

263
 THE HIJAZ
the ideology of the Taliban: ‘The genealogy of the movement can be
traced to the anti-Soviet jihaad in Afghanistan and to Afghan refugee
 

camps in neighbouring Pakistan.’220 We will not expand further here in

terms of deconstructing the ‘ideological trail’, which is both deep-
cutting and complex, as we cover it in the following chapter. In short,
it involves a complex blend that ranges from Afghan village codes, to
Wahhabism, to Salafi jihadi elements, to the impact of the internation-
alization of jihad in the context of the Soviet–Afghan war, to tribal and
religious codes which inform the Taliban’s patriarchal interpretation of
Islamic ideology.221
  Even though the regime was largely isolated from its inception,
assistance kept flowing in multiple forms. The advent of the Taliban was
territorially decisive, with the militants seizing Kabul in 1996, and
rapidly acquiring statehood-like characteristics. The Taliban established
the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, with Mullah Omar as the head of
state. At the turn of the millennium the Taliban controlled over
90 per cent of the country.222 Crucially for the scope of this study, all
   

three countries recognizing the Taliban government had a strong con-

nection to Wahhabism: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and
Pakistan. All three, especially Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, had been the
key US allies assisting the jihadi rebels that defeated the Soviet forces.
Now, a faction of these was leading the Taliban regime.223 These influ-
ences co-shaped the hardline form of Sunni Islam, with the severe
Wahhabi elements, that the Taliban leaders came to preach, advance,
and enforce.224 According to several analyses, the influence of Pakistani
and Saudi Arabian religious teachings and schools was central in the
shaping of the Taliban ideology and Islamic militant ideo-political
dogma.225 Rashid’s observations regarding the socio-political impact of
the rise of the Taliban in the Afghan society are telling, and add further
context to this discussion:
Historically, Afghanistan was a deeply conservative Muslim country
where sharia, as interpreted by Afghan tribal custom, prevailed for
centuries. But the Islam traditionally practiced in Afghanistan was also
immensely tolerant of other Muslim sects, other religions, and differ-
ent lifestyles. Until 1992, Hindus, Sikhs, and Jews all played a signifi-
cant role in the country’s bazaar economy and sectarianism was not an
issue. Since 1992, however, the bloody civil war has destroyed this

264
 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
tolerance, setting sects and ethnic groups against one another in a way
formerly unimaginable. The once unifying factor of Islam has become a
lethal weapon in the hands of extremists and a force for division and
fragmentation.226
  In many ways, therefore, there had previously been a similar trans-
formation to these, which we have discussed before, with the advent of
Wahhabism in the inter-war period, which led to a rise in intolerance,
as advanced by militant and austere sects and groups, who closed down
the space for openness and respect for religious diversity. The militari-
zation of Islam, which was started by the Mujahideen, climaxed under
the Taliban, who made it a way of life, a form of ‘a society at war’—
both domestically, and, as we shall see, internationally as well.227 A
deeply conservative Afghan village clergyman, Mullah Omar, who was
a veteran of the anti-Soviet Mujahideen effort,228 was in command of
Taliban-controlled Afghanistan from the capture of Kabul in 1996 until
the regime’s overthrow in 2001 following the US-led invasion of
Afghanistan. Omar’s title had a militant Islamic symbolism as
Commander of the Faithful (amir al-mu’minin).229 Ideo-politically and
territorially, the Taliban provided a safe haven for Islamic militants,
terrorists, and extremists—including Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaida,
which Mullah Omar had allowed to operate from within Afghanistan
since his rise to power. It was from Afghanistan that a great part of al-
Qaida’s strategizing, planning, and organization took place as it pre-
pared its international high-profile terrorist attacks. According to Laub,
Omar had asked Bin Laden and al-Qaida to refrain from antagonizing
the USA; a request that al-Qaida’s leadership did not honour.230
Al-Qaida’s agenda and worldview, as we shall discuss in the next sec-
tion in greater depth, sought to ignite a global jihad which would dras-
tically disrupt and decisively alter the global status quo through high-
profile terrorist attacks. This would in turn further fuel world-wide
‘Islamic militantism’, maximizing al-Qaida’s international reach and
influence, and paving the way for the establishment of a new form of
Islamic Caliphate.231 Crucially, however, even after the 9/11 terrorist
attacks, the leader of the Taliban rejected US-led demands to appre-
hend and extradite al-Qaida’s leader.
  Also, further to the sponsoring of terrorism, and the absolutist,
militant enforcement of their own version of Islamic law domestically,

265
 THE HIJAZ
they were, like DA’ISH, infamous for their human rights and cultural
abuses, including the destruction of the very important Bamiyan
Buddha statues,232 provoking international outrage.233 Another interest-
ing parallel with DA’ISH were the caliphal aspirations, encapsulated for
the Taliban in the ‘caliphal title of Amıir al-Muʿminıin’ assumed by its
   

founding leader, Mullah Omar, and his efforts to link himself to the
Prophet Mohammad.234 Furthermore, again similar to the deeds and
tactics of the Islamic State group, the Taliban carried out targeted mass
killings of ethnic groups, minorities, and in general groups and local
societies unwilling to submit to the absolutist Taliban doctrines and
way of life.235 According to Rashid, it was difficult, even for the people
of Afghanistan, to deconstruct the nature of the Taliban, not least
because of the secrecy of their leadership—and especially for foreign-
ers, since Mullah Omar never met with anyone who was not Muslim.236
  Even though the Taliban administration collapsed within weeks of
the US-led attack on the country in 2001, the group showed a tremen-
dous resilience. While its control over the country shrank drastically,
the Taliban managed to retreat tactically and return to gravely destabi-
lizing guerrilla tactics which claimed thousands of lives—pre-emi-
nently American and British—throughout the course of the 2001–16
period. In the early 2010s, in parallel to the turbulence in the greater
MENA which led to the rise of DA’ISH, the Taliban were making a
comeback in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Notably, they managed to gain
ground in Pakistan and establish control over several areas in the north-
west of the country. The fundamental significance of the Taliban exam-
ple is the fact that a non-state Islamic militant group was allowed to
acquire state-like characteristics—effectively, to run a state (1996–
2001)—and that, at different stages, external actors were prepared to
hold discussions with the group, engaging it diplomatically. The
Taliban’s territorial bid for statehood had tangible elements of success
and variable levels of recognition. Its survival following the US-led
invasion of Afghanistan and ongoing resilience must surely have served
to encourage other such Islamic militant actors, particularly DA’ISH,
which adopted the idea of a territorial bid for Islamic statehood under
an even more austere militant Islamic worldview, violently advancing
it in the power vacuum left in Syria and Iraq.

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
— From the Taliban to ‘Talibanization’ and the Rise of al-Qaida
As demonstrated, the rise of the Taliban is inextricably linked to the
Soviet–Afghan conflict and US–Soviet ‘proxy war’ in Afghanistan,
with the resulting scattering of heavily armed Mujahideen groups with
their different agendas, as well as the influence of external ideologies,
predominantly from Pakistan, as well as Saudi Arabia (with the two
being connected). Power vacuums, in the absence of virtuous leader-
ship, provide fertile ground for the expansion of the ‘Faith Militant’
and the growth of the ‘negative space’. They have also allowed the
‘negative space’ to acquire—and, in several instances, consolidate—
territorial characteristics, functions, and variable degrees of authority.
Undoubtedly, the absolutism, severity, narrow worldview, and ideo-
religious dogma of the Taliban falls within these categories. The same
can be argued for their statehood ambitions. Their track record in
Afghanistan and the broader region supports such analyses with bitter
examples and very dark events and instances. Rashid, in a timely 1999
article analysed the rise of ‘Talibanization’, forewarning the West and
the international community of the risks associated with the exporting
and subsequent radical adaptation of the Taliban’s militant and austere
ideo-political norms:
‘Talibanization,’ the destabilizing export of Afghan-style radical Islam,
may be a new term in the American political lexicon. But in Central
and South Asia, where the repercussions of the superstrict Taliban rule
of Afghanistan have been widely felt, the word has become all too
familiar. As political fragmentation, economic meltdown, ethnic and
sectarian warfare, and Islamic fundamentalism tighten their grip on
Pakistan and much of the … region, the dangerous behavior of
Afghanistan’s new leaders is no longer a local affair. More and more,
chaos in Afghanistan is seeping through its porous borders. The ongo-
ing civil war has polarized the region, with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia
backing the Taliban regime. … The confrontation is producing enor-
mous economic disruption throughout the area, as the Afghan war-
lords’ dependence on smuggling and drug trafficking grows insatiable.
Into the political vacuum left by 20 years of war and the collapse of
stable government has marched a new generation of violent funda-
mentalists, nurtured and inspired by the Taliban’s unique Islamist
model. Thousands of foreign radicals now fighting alongside the Taliban
in Afghanistan are determined to someday overthrow their own

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 THE HIJAZ
regimes and carry out Taliban-style Islamist revolutions in their home-
lands. … The state breakdown in Afghanistan offers militants … a
tempting package deal: sanctuary and financial support through smug-
gling. Meanwhile, Washington … hardly [has] a comprehensive policy
for dealing with this increasingly volatile part of the world. For
Western nations to presume that they can safely exploit the vast oil
and gas riches of Central Asia without first helping bring peace to
Afghanistan is unrealistic. … A new Great Game is being played in the
region. At stake, however, are no longer questions of mere political
influence or who gets to build oil and gas pipelines where. These issues
will be irrelevant unless the West figures out how to stop the spreading
conflagration in Afghanistan—and fast.
  In short, Rashid, with foresight and an insightful analysis, had fore-
warned, two years before the tragic events of 9/11, of the very danger-
ous spillovers between different expressions of the ‘negative space’,
and how variations of the Islamic Faith Militant were fanning each
other’s flames in a spiral of violence and instability. The warning also
encompassed the ‘safe haven for terrorists’ dimension,237 which the
new Taliban government was fulfilling and, as was later proven, spon-
soring. The Saudi-born al-Qaida terrorists who carried out the 9/11
attacks owed much to Mullah Omar’s Afghanistan, which hosted the
operational centre of al-Qaida, and its leader, former Mujahideen
sponsor and supporter Osama Bin Laden. Both Afghanistan and its
mountainous and sparsely populated border region with Pakistan have
been steadily featuring in the US ‘physical safe havens for terrorists’
lists. In the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings a number of MENA coun-
tries (Libya, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen), as well as Pakistan and
Afghanistan, featured in these lists, as chaos ensued and different
branches and mutations of al-Qaida and DA’ISH grew and expanded in
the various power vacuums. The Taliban, in their forceful and disruptive
statehood experience, never fought terrorism and extremism, in spite
of their promises—to the domestic audience, above all. If anything,
they nurtured and sponsored it; they emerged as key exporters of
Islamism. They gave to the terrorists the space to operate unhindered,
expand their international networks and build new global cells. The
deadliest terrorist hit in history, 9/11, partly owes its deadly success to
the Taliban—this militant Islamist movement that was allowed to
acquire statehood characteristics in the aftermath of the Afghan war;

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
the Faith Militant which rose to power in the ashes of international and
civil war. In these sections, we have identified and discussed the chain
of events that link the rise of a new wave of internationalized jihad in
the late 1970s and 1980s, the rise of the Mujahideen fighters, the role
of the USA, the rise of the Taliban, a wave of conservative Islamic reviv-
alism, the role of terrorist ‘safe havens’, and the growth of al-Qaida
with the most cataclysmic terrorist incident in recent history, 9/11.
Before moving on to the following chapter, to deconstruct the ideo-
logical drivers of the ‘negative space’, we quickly discuss al-Qaida and
DA’ISH independently.

Al-Qaida: Postmodernism
This section traces the rise and growth of al-Qaida, from a small group
in Afghanistan to the most wanted terrorist organization in the world.
We briefly refer to the key doctrinal drivers guiding the terrorists, and
assess al-Qaida as a postmodern, non-territorial entity: an entity with
no—initial, at least—ambitions towards developing traditional state-
hood characteristics, and a powerful and disruptive, yet amorphous,
enemy; a non-state actor, whose main objectives were not necessarily
immediate, pragmatic or tangible—not seeking territories, resources,
or the enslavement and subjugation of people in the neo-medieval
sense that DA’ISH attempted in the 2010s. Nor did they launch a ter-
ritorial statehood bid comparable to that of the Taliban.238 That being
said, the ultimate aim, the ‘final state’ which was to be brought about
through the terrorist entity’s activities, did, in fact, involve the estab-
lishment of a violent Caliphate.239
  The core difference from DA’ISH, however, was the angle of
approach. In the case of DA’ISH, the underlying idea has revolved
around a pragmatic territorial bid for a single Islamic state at the heart
of the Middle East, which would eventually encompass the lands of the
former Ottoman Empire (and Caliphate), and much more. DAI’SH’s
Caliphate, however, was to be built step by step, through the advance
of the terrorist group’s fighters and armies—a territorial conquest.
Al-Qaida, on the other hand, relied more on the ideo-political con-
quest, which would be inspired through highly visible acts of interna-
tional terrorism. Their core aim as seen from a Euro-Atlantic angle has

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been to deliver successfully high-impact terrorist attacks on the USA
and its allies.240 Through this strategy, they hoped to ignite new jihads
in different nations and regions, to mobilize and recruit internationally
new militant Islamists—new loyalists ready to take up arms and under-
take acts of terrorism to disrupt the status quo and devote their lives
to the Faith Militant. Anti-imperialist, anti-American, and nationalist
urges were framed with Islamic narratives and symbolisms, such as
those discussed with regard to Iran from the late 1970s onwards. The
idea, however, and the vision, had ‘gone borderless’—beyond state-
hood. It was no longer a question of ‘driving the Soviets out’, or ending
US meddling. It had become a question of believing in the ability of
igniting global jihadi cells prepared to ‘take the fight to them’, giving
to a disoriented audience the means to ‘exact revenge’, to enable
Islamic nations to get rid of Western influence, remove corrupt regimes
which are ‘collaborating with the West’ (infidels), and failing core
Islamic values.241 Eventually, through this effort, the way would be
paved for the establishment of a pan-Islamic Caliphate.242
  This world-wide recruiting and mobilization were to take place
through the targeted manipulation and exploitation of collective and
individual emotions—with the use of terror and propaganda.
Prospective Islamist jihadi ‘fighters’ were invited by al-Qaida to wel-
come the group’s strategy as their new high-impact vehicle to express
their rejection of the West and its allies. Al-Qaida’s approach was both
asymmetric and unrestricted (not territorially bound), as opposed to
the more symmetrical and systematic advancement of the neo-medieval
vision of DA’ISH and its very pragmatic territorial pursuit of the estab-
lishment of an Islamic state and a Caliphate.243 Another important dis-
tinction between al-Qaida and DA’ISH is that the former was more
dependent than the latter. DA’ISH, thanks to its territorial ambitions
and gains, became ‘the richest terror organization the world has
known’, with numerous sources of funding, including ‘oil trade, kidnap-
ping and ransom, collection of protection and taxes, bank robberies and
looting’.244 Al-Qaida relied much more heavily on international sources
of external funding, with an estimated annual turnover of $150 mil-
lion.245 Furthermore, DA’ISH has arguably not been as reliant on finding
safe havens for its activities; its headquarters and centres of operations
were carved out through its own actions, territorially, within its sphere

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of immediate control. Al-Qaida, on the other hand, has relied more
heavily on such safe zones—such as Sudan and Afghanistan.246

— The Rise
Against the backdrop of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, a
group of Arab fighters who had come to join and sponsor the
(US-backed) Mujahideen cause, under the leadership of Saudi-born
Osama Bin Laden, formed al-Qaida (the base). Bin Laden was not a
poor, uneducated village ‘clergyman’ like the leader of the Taliban,
Mullah Omar. His distinct journey is vital to understanding the influ-
ence and impact of his career, as well as his appeal in several regions
and communities around the world.247 It has been summarized suc-
cinctly in a dedicated CNN study:
Osama … bin Laden [was] born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia [in 1957]. He
[was] the [son of] a Yemeni immigrant who built a billion-dollar con-
struction company in Saudi Arabia. … [In] 1979, Bin Laden graduate[d]
from King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah with a degree in public
administration and economics. He [then went] to Afghanistan to join
the ‘jihad’, or ‘holy war’, against the Soviet Union. He remain[ed] there
for a decade, using construction equipment from his family’s business
to help the Muslim guerrilla forces build shelters, tunnels and roads
through the rugged Afghan mountains, and at times taking part in bat-
tle. [Between] 1980–1989, Bin Laden raise[d] money for the mujahe-
deen fighting in Afghanistan and also provide[d] them with logistical
and humanitarian aid. During these years, he also personally [fought] in
battles against the Soviet Union.248
  After 1989, having won the ‘holy war’ in Afghanistan, Bin Laden’s
newly founded terrorist network, al-Qaida, was in pursuit of new
jihads, new battlefields.249 From Afghanistan, the group and its leader
moved to Sudan.250 They stayed there for five years, from where they
advanced their international networks; sought to expand their sources
of funding, deepen their ties with other Islamic radical groups, and set
up training camps; advanced their radicalization agenda; and, according
to a number of analysts, organized and supported a number of attacks
against Western targets—including the 1993 attacks in Somalia (against
US servicemen) and the World Trade Centre in New York.251 Following
this series of high-profile terrorist attacks, Bin Laden came to interna-

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tional attention (Western and American especially). Pressure on Sudan
to expel Bin Laden climaxed in the mid-1990s. In 1996 the founder
and leader of al-Qaida returned to Afghanistan, the country where he
had acquired his training and ‘distinctions’ in combat and guerrilla
warfare. Crucially, the year coincided with the official establishment of
Taliban rule. In 1998, from within Afghanistan, Bin Laden issued a fatwa
calling for the killing of US citizens, framing it as the ‘individual duty
for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible
to do it’.252 Over 220 people were killed that year in Al-Qaida-
orchestrated attacks against the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
This bears semblance to the DA’ISH calls for the killing of Western citi-
zens—and ‘infidels’—globally, through asymmetric means from bombs
and suicide attacks to shootings and targeted vehicle attacks.
  Several al-Qaida-led attacks followed. The high point of the orga-
nizion’s lethal record came in 2001 with the four-plane attack carried
out by al-Qaida jihadis which claimed around three thousand lives in
the deadliest ever attack on US soil.253 Notwithstanding a US-led global
effort, labelled by the Bush administration the global ‘War on
Terror’,254 Al-Qaida, through its global networks and affiliated organi-
zations, carried out a series of subsequent international attacks. Two
events that shook the West were the 11 March 2004 attacks in Madrid,
 

and, the 7 July 2005 London bombings. Despite a series of arrests, and
 

counter-terrorist operations, the terrorist activities of al-Qaida were

effectively uninterrupted in the years that followed. On 2 May 2011
 

Bin Laden was killed in a raid by US Special Forces, who stormed his
compound in Pakistan. President Obama framed this development as
‘the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to
defeat al Qaeda’.255 However, the activities of al-Qaida did not end
with the death of the organization’s founding and paramount leader.
Militant Islamists and jihadi extremist leaders were keen to climb the
ranks of al-Qaida’s power structure, in different regions and countries,
to continue the work of the terrorist group, under the guiding vision
set out by its founder.
  Al-Qaida lost its dominant position in the global terrorism headlines
due to the rise of DA’ISH and the group’s extremely effective use of
digital propaganda and the new technologies, but, in 2016, according
to leading analysts, al-Qaida’s resilience had proved deep-rooted and

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
the group had possibly been working to consolidate its position further
‘out of the spotlight’.256 In 2011 John Brennan provided a comprehen-
sive summary of al-Qaida’s goals, suggesting four underlying distinct
aims: ‘terrorize the US into retreating from the world stage; utilise
long wars to financially bleed the US while inflaming anti-American
sentiment; to defend the rights of Muslims; and finally “a feckless delu-
sion” and “grandiose vision” for global domination through a “violent
Islamic Caliphate”’.257 ‘[Al-Qaida] leaders like Zawahiri258 have consis-
tently presented a series of objectives that al Qaeda is actively pursu-
ing: liberating all “Muslim lands” from occupation by both non-Muslims
and “apostate” rulers; imposing their version of sharia (Islamic law) on
Muslims and non-Muslims alike in these lands; erecting then a state
that they call the “Caliphate”; and eventually making God’s word the
highest. This phrase, which means many things to Muslims, signifies
just one thing for the extremists: that the entire world is ruled by their
version of sharia.’259
  Importantly, the rise—or, rather, elevation—of al-Qaida into the
arrow-head of the global amorphous enemy of ‘international terror-
ism’—the world’s greatest threat in the aftermath of 9/11—had major
political implications on the global stage. In this elevation or ‘securiti-
zation’ of the threat posed by al-Qaida and jihadi extremist leaders
such as Osama Bin Laden, the role of certain US figures such as Dick
Cheney in George W. Bush’s administration was paramount. It was as
 

if these two opposing high-profile actors worked to deliberately secu-

ritize the global discourse: Bin Laden obviously, because terror was his
vehicle; and Cheney because he wanted to underline the paramount
importance of the USA and its global military predominance.260 Of
course, in so doing, Cheney was further fuelling Bin Laden and his
cause—global fear (by elevating the threat)—as well as emboldening
Bin Laden’s followers and aspiring jihadi extremists, therefore, paving,
in a way, the road for an aspiring ‘Caliphate of terror’, such as ISIS, to
emerge. And, in the ashes of Iraq and Syria,261 and in the aftermath of
US interventionism,262 ISIS found the space to grab territories and
falsely proclaim a Caliphate—which it tried to establish upon fear,
oppression, restriction, ideo-religious absolutism, and raw terror. This
is what we shall discuss in the coming section.

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 THE HIJAZ
Neo-Medievalism: DA’ISH and theViolent Bid for a (Terrorist)
‘Islamic State’
From the non-territorial al-Qaida and its intangible conception of the
Caliphate, we discuss here the rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State
in Iraq and Syria/Levant (ISIS/ISIL). We discuss its origins, its ideo-
logical drivers, and its forceful attempts to establish a ‘Caliphate’
through aggressive military expansion and an absolutist religious doc-
trine of submission and fear. In consistency with the usage throughout
this manuscript, we will continue referring to this terrorist organiza-
tion with the Arabic acronym DA’ISH.263 DA’ISH was a by-product of
yet another power vacuum, as many abominations in history have
been—a vacuum not just of hard power, namely political, military, and
economic might, but also a product of the unending governance fail-
ures in the region; a protracted lack of inclusion; a prolonged absence
of prospects; and a failure to achieve all-encompassing progress.264
Moreover, DA’ISH tried to exploit a gap or weakness in the normative
sphere too: a crisis in Islam, associated with the modern distancing
from the era and the teachings of the Prophet, and the role of certain
precarious doctrines such as strands of Wahhabism in twisting Islamic
teachings and advancing intolerance. Through a careful study, the ideo-
logical ‘trail’ can be traced from the violent Wahhabi bids for statehood
and the role of paramilitaries and radical fanatic factions such as the
Ikhwan, to the forceful statehood bid of the Taliban in Afghanistan, to
the ideology that fuelled al-Qaida’s ‘Islamic’ militancy.
  The hard-power power vacuum that DA’ISH came to exploit can be
largely associated with: (a) the US-led interventions in Afghanistan and
Iraq (especially) and their shortcomings; (b) the uncertainty that fol-
lowed the Arab Uprisings and the tensions and instability that were
unleashed; and (c) the failure of the international community to act
preventatively to extinguish the flames in Syria and broker a timely
peace when first faced with the prospect of chaos. Such chaos was not
unknown to the international community: Libya has served as a stark
reminder of how engineering regime change without ensuring that
there is a solid power core and acceptable central government to step
in may do more harm than good. The same can be argued by experts
who were warning of the shortcomings associated with regime change

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
in Iraq. A prominent example is the warning of realist international
relations scholars Walt and Mearsheimer, who in 2003 convincingly
questioned the merits of a full-scale war effort to remove Saddam
Hussein, since, they argued, ‘scrutiny of his past dealings with the
world shows that Saddam, though cruel and calculating, is eminently
deterrable’.265 These prominent experts had also warned, with fore-
sight, that even if the war went well operationally, it would have still
been ‘unnecessary’; and, more crucially, ‘if it goes badly—whether in
the form of high U.S. casualties, significant civilian deaths, a heightened
 

risk of terrorism, or increased hatred of the United States in the Arab

and the Islamic world—then its architects will have even more to
answer for’.266
  From these far-sighted comments in 2003 we came to the weakness
of contemporary Iraq and the ashes of Syria, where the ravaging civil
war saw the weakening of both Bashar al-Assad and the complex mix-
ture of the opposition. The global milieu was tense, and the interna-
tional community in a deadlock following the aftermath of Libya,
where the UN mandate for a no-fly zone had been extended one-sid-
edly into a UK–French–US-led campaign to oust the country’s long-
standing military ruler and his regime. In 2013 US foreign policy
became more conservative, with the superpower having taken a step
back and allowing events to unfold. Red line after red line was forgot-
ten in Syria, and the humanitarian crisis reached unprecedented levels,
with a dramatic refugee crisis that first hit (predominantly) Turkey,
Lebanon, and Jordan and, later on, the EU. At the very centre of this
 

gloomy chessboard, a terrifying new actor emerged: DA’ISH. The self-

 

proclaimed Islamic State, usurping sanctified Islamic symbols, ideals,

and values, under the guise of an obfuscated jihad, began destroying
lives, waged a war on history,267 and attacked Muslims and non-Mus-
lims indiscriminately, since its absolutist religious cloak permitted it to
do so. The overarching proclaimed symbolic aim was ‘true’ Muslim
‘solidarity’ under a new ‘Caliphate’. The ways of advancing this
included: terrorism and fear; oppression and subjugation; summary
trials, executions, and excruciating punishments.268 The means and the
tools involved the use of resources such as oil money to finance radical
jihadi fighters, the weapons amassed from the retreating Iraqi forces,
the constant supplies of new recruits from numerous sources within

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and outside the region, and state-of-the-art theatrics centred around
public executions.269
  A key issue was that several countries had rushed to ‘recognize’ the
opposition forces in Syria, in high hopes of a swift transition, overlook-
ing the complexity and the potentially dangerous composition of the
numerous groups forming the opposition in Syria. For instance, Jabhat
al-Nusra (later Jabhat Fatah al-Sham) is a group whose intolerance was
not unknown; it had a negative and hostile view of other strands of
Islam, such as the Alawites, and also of the USA and Israel.270 The sus-
pected links between al-Nusra and al-Qaida became public in 2013,
with al-Nusra pledging allegiance to the terrorist group and subscrib-
ing to the push for a Caliphate.271 Conceivably, such radical groups
from within the Syrian opposition have been a source of fighters and
assistance to both al-Qaida and DA’ISH. A core link between these
 

different extremist groups is their intolerance: an absolutist perception

and extremely narrow—if not twisted—interpretation of Islam.272 The
issue dates back to the advance of certain strands of Salafism and
Wahhabism, which, ever so often, seem to be doing more harm than
good.273 The more intolerant and restrictive the ideology, the less space
there is for peace and the greater the likelihood of violence and
extremism. It is in these contexts and circumstances that the advent of
the ‘negative space’ gains greater momentum. We will not expand too
much on the ideological parallels and interconnections here—we
devote following chapter to this. We will, however, in the following
lines, provide a short background on the rise of DA’ISH, its efforts at
state building, its ambitions and their implications.
  DA’ISH emerged from the remnants of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), the
al-Qaida offshoot founded by jihadi ideologue Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
in 2004 in reaction to the US-led invasion of Iraq. DA’ISH was margin-
alized after the escalation of US-led operations in Iraq, before re-
emerging in the early 2010s. In 2009, following the withdrawal of US
forces, Iraq’s prime minister targeted Sunni leaders, in a move that
fuelled sectarian tensions. DA’ISH cells wasted no time in taking
advantage of this renewed sectarian turbulence to bolster their recruit-
ing. Furthermore, DA’ISH took advantage of chaos and disorder in Iraq
and Syria, with the raging conflicts, tensions, and the absence of strong
central governments, to expand its base and fill its ranks with radical

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 GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES CHALLENGES
Islamists from the region and beyond.274 With the conquest of pivotal
strongholds and historic cities in Iraq and Syria, growing wealth, and
ever-larger military capabilities, DA’ISH’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Bagh-
dadi, proclaimed the establishment of an ‘Islamic state’, and announced
the formation of a Caliphate, stretching from Aleppo in Syria to Diyala
in Iraq.275 At its peak, the terrorist group commanded territories the
size of the UK and was acquiring notable state-like characteristics,
facilitated by its wealth and command of vital infrastructure. It fulfilled
functions such as local administration, the management of energy,
water, electricity, and the dispensing of justice through Islamic courts
operating under its own austere version of Shari’a.276
  The notion of capturing the Islamic Holy Lands has featured repeat-
edly in DA’ISH’s ambitions, driven by the legitimizing power and appeal
such an idea mobilizes. We have discussed in depth the historical signifi-
cance of The Hijaz and its paramount importance within Islam. The need
to safeguard and reinstate The Hijaz as a powerful pan-Islamic entity and
invaluable common heritage is urgent, and Muslim nations must work
together to ensure its security. In parallel to its immediate statehood
ambitions in Iraq, Syria, and the Levant, DA’ISH proclaimed an Islamic
Caliphate that sought to encompass the lands of the Ottoman Empire
and more.277 Importantly, this chilling vision to massively redraw bor-
ders through force was regularly framed in anti-colonial language, as an
act of revenge against the artificial dividing lines of the colonialists
(especially Sykes–Picot), and the long years of Great Power divide-and-
rule policies in the Middle East. The US-led air campaign against
DA’ISH climaxed in the mid-2010s. In response, the terrorist group
expanded its networks and offshoots in the region, and stepped up its
efforts at igniting global jihadi sentiment. It began orchestrating and
instigating attacks against the countries supporting the operations
against its territorial bases in Iraq and Syria. According to the NewYork
Times, by July 2016 over 1,200 people had been killed by DA’ISH and
its supporters outside Iraq and Syria.278 By mid-2017, following a more
coordinated international community response and more targeted
engagement with local and regional actors, DA’ISH’s territorial gains
had been decisively reversed. From a growing entity with expanding
state-like characteristics and structures, commanding vast territories
and notable wealth, DA’ISH was being pushed back. However, the core
ideas, the ideological drivers, the potent symbolisms that DA’ISH mobi-

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 THE HIJAZ
lized in its pragmatic bid for statehood, the pursuit of a ‘true’ Islamic
state and the reconstitution of a Caliphate, are far from defeated.
  To end the perverse doctrinal catalysts of Islamic extremism, jihadi
terrorism, and notions of establishing such an Islamic state or
Caliphate, a decisive empowerment of the ‘positive space’ needs to be
advanced, in a coordinated manner, by all Islamic nations. Naturally,
The Hijaz, home to Islam’s holiest sites, to which 1.6 billion Muslims
pray daily, must be at the centre of such an effort. Of course, Saudi
Arabia’s guidance and leadership in the pan-Islamic effort to close
down the room for old and new expressions of the ‘negative space’ and
the Faith Militant will be paramount. In the following chapters we will
suggest that The Hijaz has powerful integrative potential, and that,
under Saudi Arabia’s umbrella of protection and stewardship, a positive
vision for the region could be delineated and advanced. This could be
achieved through a simultaneous effort, comprising (a) targeted
reforms, which would tackle the root causes of extremism and radical-
ization domestically—from a more inclusive and equitable political
economy model to more inclusive growth and prospects for the grow-
ing youth; and (b) a pan-Islamic effort, which could start from a GCC
(plus) initiative, for greater integration, cooperation, and coordina-
tion—not just in the fight against terrorism, but also in a joint effort to
diminish the ‘negative space’, address the ideological root causes of
extremism, prevent radicalization and advance a positive vision of tol-
erance, religious dialogue, and cross-doctrinal understanding. In this
second component, the role of The Hijaz, as the pre-eminent forum to
address and resolve theo-ideological and religious differences produc-
tively and harmoniously, will be paramount, just as it was centuries
back, during Islam’s greatest epochs.

278
 8

THE IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED

STATEHOOD IN THE AFTERLIFE OF THE HIJAZ

Negative and Positive Islamic Space

After the First World War, the state of Hijaz and its positive space of
Islamic governance in the region was replaced by the negative space:
the Sykes–Picot Middle East order, accompanied by nationalist, anti-
colonial, and religious movements. As we have seen, two types of gov-
ernments emerged. On the one hand, the Middle East saw the prolif-
eration of dynastic monarchies, which were often imposed in the
interests of the British, the French, or the Americans. These included
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Pahlavi Iran. On the other hand, a number
of pan-Arabist military regimes swept into power after the colonial
powers left their territory. These states included Egypt, Syria, and
Iraq.1 A seismic shift in the international order occurred yet again in
the early 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Coincidentally,
the end of the Cold War was the final nail in the coffin of pan-Arabist
movements worldwide; it was replaced with a wave of ‘political
Islam’.2 We have established that there are several reasons for this.
Firstly, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, socialist regimes in Syria
and Egypt lost their most significant financial and political patron.3
Secondly, the Afghan Mujahideen’s successful campaign against the
Soviet Union—supported by the United States—served as a catalyst

279
 THE HIJAZ
for jihad against oppressive regimes in the rest of the Islamic world.
Their newly created networks, financial resources, and arms served
only to embolden their efforts.4 Thirdly, the 1991 Gulf War and the
subsequent stationing of American troops on the Arabian Peninsula
provided the necessary rhetorical justification for continued anti-West-
ern rhetoric, coupled with religious symbolism:5 namely, the image of
a foreign army in the ‘cradle of Islam’.
  The modern trend in interpreting this phenomenon ends with ‘ter-
rorism’, which became the hallmark of the narrative in security and
intelligence circles after 9/11. While al-Qaida was a creature of the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as well as the post-1991 Gulf War era,
DA’ISH emerged primarily in response to the US invasion of Iraq in
2003.6 It publicly proclaimed a Caliphate and the end of Sykes–Picot
on 29 June 2014, after seizing parts of Iraq and Syria.7 This declaration
 

came approximately a century after the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate

and the subsequent efforts to revive it, as well as the eventual dissec-
tion of its territories by the British and the French.
  Along with the 2003 Iraq invasion and many other issues, the Arab
Spring popular uprisings in late 2010 would significantly shape the
future of the Middle East. It has been generally characterized as the
culmination of widespread, if not universal, outrage against despotism
and corruption. However, the rise of Islamists (revivalists and others)
as a result of the failure to institutionalize democratic, participatory
regimes in many of these countries highlights the difficulties faced by
attempts at political, social, and economic reformation of the Islamic
sphere. The appearance of DA’ISH may be analysed from different
political angles, and, while it seemingly revives traditional, outdated,
and archaic concepts, it raises the issue of statehood from the perspec-
tive of institutions and governance, leaving international recognition as
a final stepping stone vis-à-vis the legitimization process. This can be
referred to as the ‘negative space’ of Islamic governance: in essence, a
lack of a positive integrative discourse that can circumvent such crises.
Such a positive integrative institutional agent is desperately needed to
stabilize the region on several levels. In this chapter, we build argue
that there is no other actor so well placed to naturally assume this role
as The Hijaz. Ideally, this should be advanced with the positive and
pro-active support of Saudi Arabia throughout this crucial process. In

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a way, that would be the ‘positive space’ or the ‘Hijaz factor’ which
would fill the void that it left a hundred years ago, just as it did 1400
years before, thereby allowing and facilitating a coherent reintegration
into the Islamic and broader international order.
  This necessitates a deeper non-Orientalist understanding of faith
militancy as the ‘negative space’ of Islamic governance, and highights
the importance of analysing the roots of foundational principles and
ideological departures.

— ‘New’ Islam: The Western ‘Read’ and Response

In their attempts to understand the social and political dynamics in the
Islamic world, the failure of states, and the conditions that give rise to
extremism, Western views tend to ignore fundamental and historical
grievances that go back to the last century relating to Islam and the
region itself. They begin the discussion by asking ‘What do Muslims
want from Western democracies?’ ‘What do they employ in terms of
tactics and strategies since they are a Western “existential threat”?’ The
Western security narrative almost always begins with ideological
foundations. However, it is full of generalizations and essentialisms. In
cases where deeper investigation is conducted, general references are
made the thirteenth-century Islamic thinker Ibn Taymiyya’s notions of
resistance and the use of force, while others follow with a discussion
about Sayyid Qutb, a contemporary reformist and Muslim
Brotherhood founding father, being ‘repulsed by America’, before
moving on to 1996, and Osama Bin Laden, underscoring his earliest
demands such as ‘the Zionist crusaders need to get out of the Land of
the Holy Places’.
  The tendency to view the region in this way began in 1972 with the
terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics by the Palestinian group Black
September, which garnered widespread publicity. This was followed by
the 1979 US embassy hostage crisis in Tehran. President Carter became
involved, and in April 1980 Operation Eagle Claw, which was launched
to liberate the hostages, failed. Subsequently, the focus moved to
Lebanon to discuss Hezbollah (as a Shi’ite jihadist organization) which
had bombed US marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983. The anti-Soviet
Mujahideen experience in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989 was

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 THE HIJAZ
often described with the aphorism ‘the Kalashnikov and the Qur’an
brought down the superpower’ (of course, ignoring CIA training). This
narrative then fast-forwards to the 9/11 attacks and the world that was
created (or devastated) by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Harvard law professor and American constitutional lawyer Noah
Feldman, in his book The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, attempts to
explain to the Western public that Islamists or Shari’a-oriented political
parties ‘embrace democratic elections and basic rights. They promise
economic reform, an end of corruption, and above all, the adoption of
Shari’a.’ He sees such moves as marking a fresh conception of a new
‘Islamic state’ that ‘want to capture the core of what made the tradi-
tional Islamic state great’.8 Indeed, he argues that this tendency
towards returning to or re-founding an Islamic state came as a response
to the secularization and Westernization processes, which we discussed
in the previous chapter, and the incomplete reforms of the modern era
that also destroyed the ‘ulama’ class who interpreted and administered
Shari’a, in which a continuous struggle took place between advocates
of reform and of Islamization of the society through democratic state
institutions that would provide a balance of power. The case in point
here is the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt before and after 2011 in
Egypt. This, we believe, is true but perhaps simplistic.
  Outside the state discourse, the historical example that looms large
is the long-lived Wahhabi experiment, which was an extreme militant
movement with a puritanical salafiyya jihadiyya (Salafi jihadi) thrust that
traces its roots to Ibn Taymiyya. As the movement succeeded most
notably with the seizure of The Hijaz, the Saudi founder saw the neces-
sity to more actively participate, as a state rather than via an ideology,
in the new international order. As a result, he began to eliminate his
more militant Wahhabi Ikhwan9 partners, who sought further expan-
sion of their newly formed Arabian Islamic state, well into the Iraqi side
of the Sykes–Picot line. He gave up ideology and focused on territori-
ality and governance.
  What are the origins and fundamentals of the Wahhabism project?
The Sunni salafiyya jihadiyya ideological drivers compared to the
nation-state of Shi’a Iran? And how can they withstand the test of time?
What are their links to the extra-territorial postmodernism and com-
monalities with the emergence of neo-medievalism today? And why do
they ostensibly seem to have such wide appeal?

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
  Today, the most salient difference between postmodernist terrorism
and neo-medievalism is the aspirations on the part of the latter towards
governance and expansion. They control territory, attempt statecraft,
and have limited economic independence. Moreover, DA’ISH has
developed an elaborate system for governance based on an asymmetric
form of federalism, where they envisage direct rule over Iraq and the
Levant, an indirect connection over the Wilayah of Arabia (including
The Hijaz), and an eventual US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and
despite successful counter-efforts in Iran and Syria, neo-medievalism
may rise again to consolidate an Islamic emirate in Afghanistan and a
possible emirate in Libya. Resultantly, Stephen Walt poses the dark
question of the need to consider possibilities in the event of a DA’ISH
victory.10

Wahhabism: Ideological Prototypes and Influences

A number of experts have compared and analysed DA’ISH and
Wahhabism, tracing parallels between them and assessing the extent to
which DA’ISH’s ideology and worldview originates from Wahhabism.
Some have put forth arguments concerning the political dimensions of
their relationship, others have connected it to the Saudi ‘ulama’, while
a third group have identified and analysed a degree of conceptual ‘sym-
pathy’, arguing for the ‘integrity of the programme’ and the idea of
tamkin or ‘capacity building’.11 Hassan Farahan al-Maliki,12 a prominent
Saudi Islamic intellectual and educational critic, has argued that the ties
between DA’ISH and its Wahhabi and Salafi predecessors are not
merely historical or ideological. They are, in fact, intimately connected
to contemporary thinkers in Saudi Arabia. He traces Wahhabi ideology
to extreme Salafi thinking, and in particular to Ibn Taymiyya (1262–
1328), who through his teachings and writings effectively legitimized
armed resistance and deadly violence against others—especially
Muslims who through their practices and deviance became ‘apostates’.
Maliki says that ‘by ignoring them, we left ourselves faced with
DA’ISHs of the past and present massacring the near and far’. Maliki,
who was educated in the Wahhabi tradition, points to the ideological
wellspring found in the original fatwas of the first official mufti of the
modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Al al-

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 THE HIJAZ
Shaykh, a great-grandson of Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703–
92), the founder of the movement. This trajectory continued in the
works of Saudi scholars such as the late mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz
Bin Baz, who argues for ‘disavowal’ as well as calling for a jihad against
what he describes as ‘non-conforming’ Muslims and Western nations.13
  An equally powerful analysis is offered by Cole Bunzel, who sheds
light on the ideational influences, ideo-religious and political, tracing the
links between the evolution of Salafi thought and the Wahhabi (re-)inter-
pretations, with references to specific historical examples of Wahhabi
violence stemming from (or inspired by) these interpretations:
The second stream of Islamic thought contributing to the Islamic State’s
ideology is known as Salafism, a primarily theological movement in
Sunni Islam concerned with purifying the faith. Salafism focuses on
eliminating idolatry (shirk) and affirming God’s Oneness (tawhid).
Salafis view themselves as the only true Muslims, considering those
who practise so-called ‘major idolatry’ to be outside the bounds of the
Islamic faith. Those worshiping—or perceived to be worshiping—
stones, saints, tombs, etc., are considered apostates, deserters of the
religion. These include the Shi‘a and, for many Salafis, democrats, or
those participating in a democratic system. The Shi‘a are guilty of shirk
on account of their excessive reverence of the Prophet Muhammad’s
family, among other things, while democrats err in assigning ‘partners’
to God in legislation, deemed the prerogative of the Divine Legislator.
A distinctive Salafi intellectual genealogy extends to medieval times.
  He continues:
The writings of the Syrian Hanbali scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) and
his students provide the core Salafi theological corpus. Later significant
Salafi thinkers came from the Wahhabi movement, or Wahhabism. …
The Saudis helped the Wahhabis to impose their version of the faith
across Arabia by waging jihad against perceived heretics for the sake of
eliminating shirk and affirming tawhid. Wahhabi jihad involved the
destruction of tombs and shrines and the enforcement of proper ritual
practices, as well as cleansing Islam of Shi’ism. The anti-Shi’ite element
in jihadism derives from Salafism’s historical animus toward the Shi‘a.
In 1792, for example, Saudi Wahhabi forces launched an attack on the
Shi’ite centre of al-Ahsa’ in eastern Arabia in order to stamp out Shi’ite
practices there. Later, in 1801, they besieged the two holiest Shi’ite
shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, pillaging Karbala and killing
several thousand. As late as 1927, the leading Wahhabi scholars of the

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
Saudi kingdom sought forcibly to ‘convert’ the Shi‘a of the country’s
eastern province or else expel them. The … anti-Shi’ite sentiment,
however, still runs deep in Salafism.14
  Western scholars and experts have also picked up this link between
violent Islamic extremism and jihadi terrorism and the thought and
writings of Ibn Taymiyya, with their profound influence on Wahhabism.
For instance, in analysing the theo-ideological drivers behind al-Qaida’s
doctrine and the worldview of its leader, al-Zawahiri,Youssef H. Aboul-  

Enein highlights:
Among the works that influenced Al-Zawahiri and justified his theories
for the violent overthrow of Arab regimes is the work of … Ibn
Taymiyya who wrote the book aS-Siyasa aSh-Shariyya (on The Islamic
Legitimate Polity). It is a staple of every Islamic militant and it proposes
such concepts as a social compact between the governor and the gov-
erned, based upon piety. The people owe their allegiance to a ruler in
return for the ruler governing according to Islamic law. In addition, he
took the extraordinary step of re-awakening the seventh century doc-
trines of the Kharijites (The Outsiders). The Kharijites felt that anyone
who cheated God of His divine plan is an apostate and their killing is
sanctioned. The Kharijites also elevated Jihad to being a sixth pillar of
Islam, contrary to the fact that there are only five pillars in Islam and
Jihad is not one of them. Ibn Taymiyya applied this doctrine on the
Mongols, who, although converted to Islam, still retained their tribal
laws. He argued that since the Mongols did not practice Islamic law,
they are apostates and their killing is an obligation and duty until they
accepted Islamic law. His writings became a political tool for rulers to
declare their political rivals to be apostates.15
  Fouad Ibrahim, a Saudi Shi’ite political activist, in his book Da’ish
from Najdi to Baghdadi, links geopolitical depictions of the Wahhabi
political project with DA’ISH. He explains the critical Islamic space
created in the years leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq in Sunni
society in Baghdad. He describes the use of religious rhetoric on the
part of Saddam Hussein in an effort to take advantage the fear in Iraq
before the anticipated invasion and subsequent war. The mosque,
Qur’an, and reintroduction of Sunni Salafi books from Saudi Arabia
and others to the Iraqi society created a shift. This escalated with Paul
Bremer’s sectarian programme as part of the US provisional govern-
ment in Iraq. The Shi’ites and Kurds found refuge in the new system,

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 THE HIJAZ
while the Sunni ruling and military elite were cut off, along with the
‘de-Ba’thification’ vetting process. Ibrahim further argues that the
crises of Saudi spending against Shi’ites via Kuwait, and the billions
that followed from Syria in the post-2012 period, created an environ-
ment of empowerment for these Wahhabi factions. Jonathan Powell’s
book Talking to Terrorists argues that one way to target DA’ISH is to
focus on the transactional separation between DA’ISH and former
Ba’ath party officials.16
  The most novel idea is advocating for the attainment of a strategic
ecosystem that does not originate in religion, but rather via the cre-
ation of a political environment aimed at the end goal of a state. This
idea of political empowerment is known as the tamkin principle. It was
essentially born from what is described as the Saudi clergy’s failures,
and the tendency to appease the rulers coupled with a conscious choice
not to educate the ignorant public. In order to step up the resistance—
in response to the difficult times the umma is going through—a ‘new
wave’ must aim towards change and establishing ‘capacity’ (i.e. admin-
istrative control or governance) over territories.
  The Sunni shaykh Ahmed el-Tayeb, currently the Grand Imam of
al-Azhar, after acknowledging the historically imperial roots of the
current crises in the Middle East, offered a sharply critical opinion on
the neo-medievalist claim for an Islamic Caliphate, by associating the
practice of takfir by DA’ISH with ‘groups cast aside by history’, and
hinting at the Wahhabis and their mistaken understanding of Islam.
El-Tayeb refers to them as the ‘Neo-Radicals’ for their adoption of
takfir. By explaining and clarifying the use of the concept of jihad, he
states that killing may not be permissible in a context outside defence,
adding that jihad itself may not be declared in the absence of a legiti-
mate authority. As for the Caliphate, he explains that it is not one of the
‘fundamentals’ of faith but merely an ‘extension’ of the articles of faith,
further stating this is ‘a fact known to the youngest student at
Al-Azhar’, underscoring the lack of understanding of the articles of
faith by such neo-radicals or medievalists.17
  The tragedy, in so many ways, lies in the backwardness of this abhor-
rent territorialism; in its neo-medieval dimension: the radical (mis-)
interpretation of the Holiest texts, the complete absence of context,
and the identification with the narrowest, puritanical, most extreme

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
and absolutist versions of Wahhabi–Salafi thought.18 This return to the
darkest pages of history is underpinned by the advance of this neo-
medieval expression of the Faith Militant, stemming from the most
‘poisoned wells’ of Islamic thought and imposed through the most
horrific version al-salafiyya al-jihadiyya. It is as if the worst nightmares
and ghosts of the past have taken the stage in a theatre of absolute
brutality in the twenty-first century; as if the sins of the past have come
back to exact a terrible vengeance, prompting in turn the question of
whether it is in part our fault for not confronting them and setting
them at rest—within Arabia and Greater Middle East, and within
Islam: neo-medievalist terror, the enslaving, the rapes, the violence, the
killings, the usurpation of religion to arm and unleash deadly paramili-
taries and fanatics. These tragic events, as we shall discuss, are not new.
They are part of a very sad, unfortunate, dangerous, violent, twisted,
and perverse return of the moments of the region’s turbulent past.
Revisiting core Islamic values, studying Islam’s ‘golden age’ and the
path shown by the Rightly Guided Caliphs are central in pre-empting
and delegitimizing, collectively and categorically, the new expressions
of extremism.
  After all, as Esposito highlighted in 2015, the word jihad, for the
vast majority of Muslim people globally, means something very differ-
ent than what it means to the extremists:
The multiple meanings of jihad across the Muslim world today are
reflected in Muslim responses to a worldwide Gallup Poll’s open-ended
question, ‘Please tell me in one word (or a very few words) what
“jihad” means to you.’ Personal definitions of jihad included (in decreas-
ing order of frequency) references to: ‘a commitment to hard work’
and ‘achieving one’s goals in life’; ‘struggling to achieve a noble cause’;
‘promoting peace, harmony or cooperation, and assisting others’; and
‘living the principles of Islam’. In four Arab nations (Lebanon, Kuwait,
Jordan, and Morocco), the most frequent response was: ‘duty toward
God’, a ‘divine duty’, or a ‘worship of God’—with no explicit milita-
ristic connotation at all.19

— Wahhabism and its State: Ideology in Action

According to the Egyptian theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is, para-
doxically, a figure strongly linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, the

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 THE HIJAZ
Islamic state enjoys certain features that distinguish it from other types
of state; one major feature is that it is a legitimate constitutional state
that relies on the main principles and rules mentioned in the Qur’an
and explained in the Sunna. A second feature is the existence of a con-
sultative council (shura). Al-Qaradawi thus asserts that the Islamic state
is not based on dynastic governance, nor is it a rule by force without
the consent of the people. He states that the ruler ‘holds the responsi-
bility before the nation’s representatives from the people of shura and
ahl al-hall wa al-‘aqd [the elite qualified to elect or depose a caliph or
ruler],20 who may isolate him from office if he became unjust or “mal-
administers” the people’s affairs or does not listen to those who pro-
vided him with advice’.21 Likewise, al-Qaradawi stresses the individu-
al’s right to provide advice to the ruler as an extension of the Islamic
principle of al-amr bi ’l-ma‘ruf wa ’l-nahy ‘an al-munkar (enjoining righ-
teousness and forbidding evil).22
  A closer look at the development of the first Wahhabi–Saudi state
reveals that the second feature—shura—does not exist in Wahhabi
political thought or practice. Justification for whoever holds power,
regardless of the process, is accepted and legitimized in Wahhabi politi-
cal thinking, in order to avoid fitna (strife).
  Unlike the majority of Sunni Muslim scholars’ views regarding the
Islamic system of governance, political authority, and the criteria for
selecting a caliph, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab derives his principles from the
jurisprudential doctrine of Ibn Taymiyya, which accepts—and thus
legitimizes—the strong ruler who assumes his position by force, rather
than being chosen by the umma.23 The alliance between Ibn ‘Abd al-
Wahhab and Mohammad Ibn Saud, forged in 1744, was founded on
that very idea. However, in this case, the religious current would per-
mit—and partake in—the use of force, instead of simply declaring its
legitimacy post factum. Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab had a vision of ‘legitimate
force’ that would extend throughout Arabia, whose significance would
depend on its application. The movement was Bedouin, and, in essence,
trans-tribal. Arabia was poor and destitute, and, therefore giving these
tribes a means of sustenance through raids with a religious justification
made the equation perfect. Al-Katib argues that absolutism and despo-
tism were obvious in the establishment of the Wahhabi first Saudi
Islamic state, along with an absence of shura and popular participation

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
in governance affairs.24 Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab did not establish or provide
a complete political theory of governance. As a result, with no political
tradition, the first Saudi Islamic state primarily relied on traditional
nomadic Bedouin norms and did not require the consent of the people
(umma) or the appointment of the commander via ahl al-hall wa al-‘aqd,
or even the principle of consultation (shura). Instead, the Wahhabi–
Saudi state was based on power, coercion, force, and fear, as well as an
expansionist territorial agenda.25
  Certainly, the puritanical religious position of Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab
and his firmness in crystallizing his ideas rested on citing Qur’anic
verses to support his cause, and were essential in convincing political
actors such as Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud and his clan. His Salafist
rhetoric—relying on the historical founding cohort and extensive ref-
erences to the Qur’an in his writings, speeches, and arguments as a
religious reformer—also influenced the people in general, and success-
fully produced strongly dogmatic adherents. Consequently, Imam
Mohammad Ibn Saud’s assertion that it was a religious duty to obey the
imam unreservedly led to the legitimization of the political institutions
of the first Saudis. That said, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab did not address the
other legal conditions of the Caliphate, such as the Quraysh require-
ment. In essence, the Wahhabi move legitimized Imam Ibn Saud’s inva-
sion and first occupation of The Hijaz in 1802, claiming jihad. The main
arguments stemmed from the Wahhabi theo-ideology, which required,
necessitated, and catalysed forceful action in order to ‘correct’ the
Muslim people’s heretical creed and reintroduce true Islamic values (as
understood and advanced by the Wahhabis).26
  Although many joined Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab’s Faith Militant move-
ment and accepted his very narrow interpretation of the faith, other
tribes rejected Wahhabism, declaring a rebellion and founding a rene-
gade movement. This movement lasted for a few years, before it was
put down in 1755.
  The following passage succinctly discusses the initial success of the
theo-political marriage of Wahhabi thinking and Ibn Saud’s strategic
resolve:
From their power-base at Dar’iyya in Central Arabia Muhammad b.
‘Abdal-Wahhab and the amir Muhammad b. Saud launched their cam-
paign to reform Islam in Arabia. The alliance of spiritual and temporal

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 THE HIJAZ
authorities proved remarkably successful, and the impetus for the jihad
against all whom they regarded as unbelievers did not fade with the
death of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab in 1792. It actually continued with the
energy born of the conviction that it was the duty of the only true
Muslim community, that of the Wahhabis, to call the entire Islamic
world to repentance for having lapsed from the pure Unitarianism of
the early Muslims and for having espoused corrupt and decadent beliefs
and practices incompatible with Islam. In 1802 the Shi’ites of Iraq had
reason to be dismayed by violent Wahhabi attacks, the sacking of
Karbala and destruction of the tomb of Husayn. By 1805 the holy cities
of Mecca and Medina were in Wahhabi hands, and the Saud amir had
the temerity to denounce the Ottoman sultan and call in question the
validity of his claim to be caliph and guardian of the sanctuaries of the
Hejaz. Effectively, the Wahhabis were to prevent him for a decade from
affording protection to the great caravans of pilgrims making their way
to Mecca for the annual hajj.Yet, while the Wahhabi challenge became
an understandable concern for the Ottomans, it also became obvious
that such inflexible and exclusivist policies presented real dangers to
their advocates. They led directly to the Ottoman reaction which
resulted in the crushing of the first Wahhabi-Saudi state [by 1818].27
  The Wahhabi–Saudi alliance was pivotal for the initial success of the
first Saudi state. However, the same absolutism, intolerance, and
expansionist and forceful dogmatic worldview that helped advance
tribal coherence and fuelled the Saudi–Wahhabi warriors was also the
cause of the demise of that state: the dogma, and the policies that it
encouraged, alienating Muslims and instigating fear, led to the eventual
Ottoman intervention.

— Faith Militancy and Expiation: Tawhid and Takfir

The emergence of Wahhabism in Arabia is a crucial element in under-
standing the structure of the Wahhabi–Saudi states as well its reimagin-
ing and endorsement of certain Islamic concepts such as al-wala’ wa
al-bara’ (loyalty and disavowal). The major task that Wahhabism arro-
gated to itself was to is promote tawhid (monotheism) in addition to
emphasizing a return to an ‘authentic’ Islam. However, their under-
standing and interpretation of tawhid is different from the generally
established notion in the Islamic tradition. Monotheism in Islamic
thinking refers to the belief that God is the one creator. According to

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
Wahhabism, God is not simply the Creator, he is al-ma‘bud, ‘the One
who should be worshipped’.28 As such, ‘it is not enough to acknowl-
edge that there is no partner with God to be a muwahid (monotheist),
but, performing and practising the worship exclusively to God alone.
Thus, Wahhabis consider any form of practice or worship that are per-
formed other than to God means polytheism.’29
  In practical terms, polytheism (shirk)30 is the justification for declar-
ing someone an infidel (takfir) and effecting jihad against such a person;
in most cases, the people in question are Muslims (but this is irrelevant
since they deviate from the above-mentioned core value).31 It follows
that the term shirk is one of the dominant themes in Wahhabism. It is
generally understood as the worship of any entity or deity other than
God.32 However, in Wahhabi thought the concept is constructed more
broadly, to include any dissenting opinions in relation to the very dis-
tinct Wahhabi understanding of monotheism.33
  The Wahhabi perception of tawhid has been highly contested by
wider Muslim scholarship over the centuries. According to al-Katib,
the Wahhabis used takfir—the practice of designating someone an infi-
del—not just against individuals, but against entire nations. As such,
they presume the ill-will or ignorance of Muslims to understand the
faith and therefore see it as their duty to have them ‘cleansed’, ‘puri-
fied’, and ‘re-introduced’ to Islam based on the Wahhabi understanding
(through deadly force, where necessary).34 Thus, al-Katib asserts that
Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab unsurprisingly classified only his followers as
‘monotheists’ and ‘Muslims’. The uproar and strong opposition by
many scholars to Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab’s use of takfir should not come as
a surprise. Al-Katib states that ‘Soliman Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, the
brother of Mohammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, wrote a book35 refuting the
use of takfir against Muslims in general.’36 However, al-Nadawi argues
that Soliman changed his mind, and in 1776 conformed to his brother’s
wishes and viewpoint.37 However, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, and later on, his
followers, claim to have repudiated all such claims of takfir against all
Muslims. Specifically, they asserted in their compiled gospel al-Durrar
al-Saniyya fi al-Ajwiba al-Najdiyya—the very austere Wahhabi compila-
tion establishing the sect—that to attribute this position to them is a
‘false accusation’.38 Overall, however, since its very inception,
Wahhabism has advocated for, and systematically advanced, through its

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 THE HIJAZ
teachings, practice, and application, a far more narrow, restrictive, and
intolerant interpretation and version of Islam which has become domi-
nant in certain Wahhabi-influenced Islamic societies and groups.39

— Loyalty and Disavowal: al-Wala’ wa al-Bara’

Wahhabism strongly stresses the notion of loyalty and disavowal in reli-
gious, social, and political relations, but the concept has taken on differ-
ent forms. It is believed that the term wala’ means loyalty within the
circle of the believers. However, in Wahhabi writings it denotes the
loyalty that all Muslims should show to God, the religion (Islam), and
their fellow Muslims in every sphere of life; while bara’ is the notion
that all Muslims should disavow all people or things considered un-
Islamic. Wahhabis use the concept to make a distinction between Islam
and everything else—and in particular, the relations between Muslims
and ‘infidels’. However, al-Katib argues that Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab had
made loyalty to his views a condition for defeating shirk, as he did not
merely accept that people refrain from what he considered to be shirk.40
Sulayman ibn ‘Abdallah Al al-Shaykh (1785–1818), a grandson of Ibn
‘Abd al-Wahhab, is considered by many to be the first major contributor
to the revival of the doctrine of loyalty and disavowal in the nineteenth
century. He expanded on his grandfather’s work, and stressed that God
clearly commanded Muslims to avoid any loyalty to his enemies.
Moreover, some argue that he contributed in extending the excom-
munication beyond non-Muslims to include non-Wahhabi Sunnis.41
  By shedding light on the context and challenges that the Wahhabi–
Saudi states faced, one can understand the factors that contributed to
radicalism and extremism in Wahhabi political thought. In the eigh-
teenth century, after Ottoman control of Hijaz and the Holy Lands had
been challenged for the first time by the Saudi–Wahhabi alliance, also
under the pretext of shirk, the Ottoman Empire directly authorized an
Egyptian intervention in Arabia against the alliance. The intervention
successfully ended the first Saudi Islamic state.42 Some Arab tribes who
were not satisfied with the movement but were nevertheless forced to
follow Wahhabism as a doctrine had also called for, and supported, the
Egyptian intervention against the alliance.43 This was interpreted by
Wahhabi scholars as a threat to their mission as well as an act of disloy-
alty, and it was from there that the political aspect of the concept

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evolved, resulting in the Ottomans being classified as polytheists by
Wahhabi scholars.
  The doctrine of al-wala’ wa al-bara’ was further refined during the
period of the second Saudi Islamic state, after the emergence of Imam
Faisal in 1843. Wahhabi scholars developed a specific sub-concept
within the category, which equated ‘loyalty’ to polytheists with a form
of polytheism. This understanding of the concept was deployed in the
1870s during the conflict between two brothers, Abdullah and Saud,
over the throne, as Abdullah sought the Ottomans’ help against his
brother. Wahhabi scholars declared this as an act of shirk based on their
earlier declaration of the Ottomans as polytheists. One of the more
prominent Wahhabi scholars, Hamad Bin Atiq (d. 1883 or 1884),44
defined bara’ in a way that required Muslims to actively disavow oth-
ers—polytheists, ‘non-true’ Muslims, ‘infidels’ (as defined earlier) and
their associates, or those tolerating them—in order to be recognized
as ‘true’ Muslims. Likewise, another prominent Saudi Wahhabi scholar,
‘Abd al-Latif ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman Al al-Shaykh (1848–1921), supported
the same view, but also recommended waging jihad against those he
believed to be polytheists. Thus, the civil war that erupted in 1865, and
the inherent threat to the Wahhabi doctrine and its endurance, led ‘Abd
al-Latif to take an extreme position which led to the killing of those
deemed polytheists, based on his own interpretation of texts.45 In this
respect, Hegghammer states that ‘critics may object that the Wahhabi
concern for purity was historically directed more at sinful Muslims
than at outsiders. From the eighteenth to the early twentieth century,
Wahhabi zealots fought other nominal Muslims, not infidels.’46
  Some experts also point to Imam Faisal for the ideo-religious
­convergence, proximity, and/or conflation between Wahhabism and
Salafism:
Although Salafism and Wahhabism began as two distinct movements,
Faisal’s embrace of Salafi pan-Islamism resulted in cross-pollination
between ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings on tawhid, shirk and bid’a and
Salafi interpretations of hadith. … Some Salafis nominated ibn Abd al-
Wahhab as one of the Salaf (retrospectively bringing Wahhabism into
the fold of Salafism), and the Muwahidin began calling themselves
Salafis. Today, a profusion of self-proclaimed Salafi groups exist, each
accusing the others of deviating from ‘true’ Salafism. … The pro-Saudis
correctly trace al-Qaeda’s ideological roots to Qutb and al-Banna. Less

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 THE HIJAZ
accurately, they accuse these groups of insidiously ‘entering’ Salafism.
In fact, Salafism was imported into Saudi Arabia in its Ikhwani and
Qutbist forms. This does not mean that the pro-Saudi Salafis are neces-
sarily benign—for example, Abu Mu’aadh as-Salafee’s main criticism
of Qutb and Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna is that they
claim Islam teaches tolerance of Jews. … Faisal’s embrace of pan-
Islamism achieved its main objective in that it helped Saudi Arabia to
overcome pan-Arabism. However, it created a radicalized Salafi con-
stituency, elements of which the regime continues to fund.47
  Wahhabi scholars of the twentieth century, while still studying its
history and historiography, became less focused on the political use of
the concept. Instead, they shifted their focus to the social dimension of
the concept, with some legitimization of state practice in certain issues
such as trading with non-Muslims.48 This attempt by contemporary
Wahhabis to depoliticize the concept of al-wala’ wa al-bara’ overlooks
the fact that the entire concept developed during the conflict between
the Ottoman-supported Egyptian army and the Saudi–Wahhabi alliance
during which Wahhabi ‘ulama’ legitimized certain actions to support
rulers in the name of religion. However, the emergence of the recent
writings of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi,49 who is considered one of the
shaykhs of salafiyya jihadiyya (jihadi Salafist thinking), emphasized the
political sphere of the concept, and specifically utilizing the help of
infidels as an act of shirk, which requires jihad (in its military sense)
against polytheists. For al-Maqdisi this may include the rulers of the
Muslim world. Al-Maqdisi drew comparisons between Abdullah’s
request for assistance from the Ottomans in the nineteenth century and
the twentieth-century US-led Gulf War.50
  A further invocation of the doctrine of al-wala’ wa al-Bara’ appeared
in the aftermath of the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, in
2001 and 2003 respectively, in the context of which Saudi Arabia and
various other Arab and predominantly Islamic states maintained rela-
tions with the United States. Some Wahhabi scholars criticized such
close relations with a country ‘fighting against Muslims’. They there-
fore considered Saudi Arabia to be actively supporting infidels.51
Nevertheless, the political interpretation of the concept has widely
spread beyond Saudi scholars. Notably, al-Qaida leaders adopted it in
their efforts to legitimize their actions, resulting in some observers
concluding that al-wala’ wa al-bara’ is ‘one of the most important doc-

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
trinal elements of Jihadism’.52 Wagemakers concludes that al-wala’ wa
al-bara’, in its political version, eventually became a mainstream con-
cept among jihadi extremists and for at least one radical thinker, lost
its social relevance—which was the only dimension acknowledged by
quietist scholars—altogether’.53 The following passage by Lynch, dis-
cussing al-Qaida’s absolutist views in this context, is particularly
telling:
Participation in elections or in such parliaments, which elevates the
rule of man over that of God, represents a form of polytheism and a
rejection of the doctrine of Hakimiyya (rule of God on earth).
Coexistence with non-Islamist groups, to say nothing of actual alli-
ances, violates the principle of al-wala wa al-bara, which jihadi-Salafists
believe forbids cooperation or interaction with non-Muslims.54
  As a means of suppressing disagreement, some groups have increas-
ingly attempted to link kufr (unbelief) or takfir and jihad.55 Many
Muslim scholars have attempted to counter this linkage. For instance,
the late Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Shaykh Mahmoud Shaltut,56 wrote a
book in 1948 entitled al-Qur’an wa al-Qital (The Qur’an and fighting),
where he warned against the danger of the increased rhetoric of takfir,
and by extension jihad, and the confused aggression as a result of
including Muslims in the concept of al-wala’ wa al-bara’. Moreover,
Shaykh Shaltut called upon those who fight in the name of jihad against
non-Muslims to re-read the Qur’an and the history of the Rightly
Guided Caliphs and the way in which they treated non-Muslims. By
doing so, he asserts, they will discover how Islam promotes peace and
human solidarity.57 Other scholars similarly criticized the misuse of the
concept, and tried to narrow its meaning and usage to times of war.58
In this regard, al-Mas’ari, a Saudi scholar, ultimately defines ‘loyalty’ as
‘helping the infidel soldiers, allying with them … supporting them,
aiding them against the Muslims, revealing the security and military
secrets of the Muslims to the infidels, inciting the infidels to fight the
Muslims or helping them in preparing for war on the Muslims’.59

— Sovereignty: al-Hakimiyya
Al-Hakimiyya (‘divine sovereignty’ or ‘divine governance’) is one of the
pillars of the state that indicate its supreme authority over its subjects.

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 THE HIJAZ
In its most simple form, it is the rule of God. However, most of the
debate tends to focus on who possesses (or interprets) this sovereignty.
Some support the unity and ‘defragmentation’ (centralization) of sov-
ereignty, thereby, in a way, rendering it exclusively as a theocratic type
of sovereignty (a more absolutist view).60 Others argue that sover-
eignty is democratic in that it is spread among members of the nation,
thereby casting it as a form of popular sovereignty.61 Nevertheless, the
concept of hakimiyya in Islamic political thought contains the rights of
obedience, commands, prohibitions, and other consequences. The
Islamic state or Caliphate therefore habitually indicates the sovereignty
of Shari’a as one of its main pillars. Notably, all Muslim scholars agree
on the fact that God, based on a number of Qur’anic verses, primarily
possesses hakimiyya.62 Moreover, those scholars agree that the Prophet
Mohammad was vested with hakimiyya during his life, based on certain
texts.63 However, Mustafawi argues that Muslim scholars disagree on
how hakimiyya and governance should be practised after the death of
the Prophet.64 Contemporary Muslim scholars have adopted different
interpretations of hakimiyyia; some place it with the umma and people,
while others assert that it is a theocratic tendency.65
  Such disagreement has led to the current practical challenges in
understanding the concept of hakimiyya. The differing interpretations
between Islamists and others emerged after the fall of the Caliphate.
Consequently, it has become one of the more controversial concepts to
have been employed by militant groups in recent times. Some strongly
argue that the concept, as an exclusively theocentric one, has historical
roots that go back to the Khawarij66 in the time of the fourth Rightly
Guided Caliph, Imam ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, as evinced by their maxim ‘no
governance except that of Allah’. For instance, al-Qaida’s worldview is
based upon a similar absolutist reading of the concept; the following
excerpt from Lynch’s analysis is particularly relevant:
Al Qaeda’s conception of the Islamic state envisions absolute Hakimiyya;
an extremely strict reading of Islamic behaviour and practice; the rigor-
ous enforcement of Islamic morality; no place for civil law independent
of Sharia; no tolerance of diversity or interpretation; and no place
whatsoever for the institution of the nation state.67
  The Pakistani Salafi scholar Abul-‘Ala al-Mawdudi (1903–79) is seen
as one of the main theorists of hakimiyya, having written extensively on

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
the concept in his struggle for Islamic identity in India after the fall of
the Khilafat Movement, which we discussed earlier, and whose work
was a powerful influence on the thought and work of the influential
Islamic revivalist scholar Sayyid Qutb (1906–66), among others.68 By
extension he became a reference in contemporary Islamic discourse for
those seeking the implementation of Shari’a law. While al-Mawdudi was
trying to distinguish the Islamic system of governance from European
theocracy, he used certain terminology that was misunderstood, such as
‘Islamic theocracy’, ‘the divine-democratic government’, and ‘demo-
cratic theocracy’. Al-Qaradawi observes that, although al-Mawdudi may
have misused the term ‘theocracy’ in his arguments, he explained that
his views concerning Islamic theocracy meant that it is to be in the
hands of Muslims in general, and they should handle it in accordance
with the Qur’an and Sunna, in which God granted Muslims a limited
popular sovereignty.69
  Al-Mawdudi’s thought influenced other thinkers in the twentieth
century. The most important was Sayyid Qutb,70 who joined the
Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1950s and became a prominent mem-
ber. He repeatedly asserted the inclusiveness and sovereignty of
Shari’a. Sovereignty, according to Qutb, is intended to mean the sov-
ereignty of the Shari’a as a constitution.71
  Nonetheless, the increased political discussion about democracy and
its compatibility with Islam made some Islamic groups examine the
concept of democratic sovereignty. Some claimed that democracy is
against the sovereignty of God based on Qur’anic verses concerning
governance (hukm). Consequently, the concept of hakimiyya has been
increasingly used by militant groups based on their own interpretation
of these Qur’anic verses, and referencing Qutb’s ideas. However,
Khatab asserts that ‘Qutb’s concept of Hakimiyya is not against democ-
racy, as such, but is compatible with it’.72 Al-Qaradawi reasoned that it
is true that sovereignty should be only for God, in what he refers to as
‘supreme’ and ‘absolute’ sovereignty. However, this does not negate the
possibility of people’s right in legislating for the issues that God has
already given permission, as evinced by the absence of scriptural pre-
scriptions. This includes all issues except that which deals with worship
and the rules of halal and haram.73 This point of view is shared by al-
Nadi and al-Ghannouchi.74 Therefore, most contemporary Muslim

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 THE HIJAZ
scholars take it that the real meaning of hakimiyya is that supreme leg-
islative sovereignty is for God, with a space for Muslims to legislate in
all other issues that are not covered by explicit texts.75 In the modern
Shi’ite context, Imam Khomeini also relied on the doctrine in his
rhetoric and the legal underpinnings of the 1979 Iranian Revolution,
and included it in the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
  Indeed, the Wahhabi interpretation of the concept of sovereignty is
much more radical. However, the Qur’anic verses that discuss the con-
cept of hakimiyya did not categorize all those who do not enforce the
religious law as kuffar (apostates); rather, they included three descrip-
tions. The first was kuffar, or ‘deniers of the truth’.76 The second was
zalimun, or ‘the evildoers’.77 The third was ‘truly iniquitous’.78 The
Qur’an therefore makes different gradations and distinctions, in sharp
contradistinction to the Wahhabi viewpoint.
  In these sections we have traced and analysed how a series of key
Wahhabi concepts evolved over time and through a series of interpreta-
tions and reinterpretation by Islamic—pre-eminently Wahhabi—reli-
gious leaders and scholars, who came to find themselves using different
expressions of the negative space, historically. Before turning to how
these concepts have resurfaced in modern times, we will now reflect and
look back at the historical evolution of different currents of Islamic
Sahwa revivalism.We will also examine the ‘Shi’a statehood experience’,
of bringing about Shi’afication and Persianization in the structure of the
modern Iranian constitutional nation-state, and how this alternative
model of Islamic statehood has been received by Sunni scholars.

Islamic Revivalism: Sunna and Government

Revivalism in Islam is not exclusively a contemporary movement, nor
is it exclusive to the Shi’a experience. Rather, in the history of Islam
and Muslims there have been many groups and movements emerging
with specific interpretations of what an Islamic society and polity
should be. All these movements were inspired by internal factors, and
mostly in reaction to other traditional schools of thought within Islam,
as well as in response to changing political and economic conditions.79
One might even argue that revivalist currents began immediately after
the passing of the Prophet, and have, historically, varied in intensity,
influence, and success.

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
  In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was a wave of reviv-
alism, in the sense of reform and renewal, in different contexts and
locations in the Muslim world: in Arabia, with the role and radical
teachings of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab himself; in North Africa,
through the work of Muhammad ibn ‘Ali al-Sanusi; and elsewhere,
where other religious figures were able to adopt revivalist views in
Sunni Islam. Essentially, these currents shared a common theme of reju-
venating the Islamic community they were living in. However, the con-
text of Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab’s revivalism was particularly complicated, as
he considered some Muslims who were not following his interpretation
of the law of the Prophet Mohammad to be more despicable than ‘infi-
dels’. Thereby his reform was, in general, underpinned by a forcible
claim for a revival of the Islamic tradition through a return to the early
period of Islam and the classical Salafi interpretation of texts.80
  In contrast to orthodox Salafism, some moderate Muslim figures
sought to adopt a renewal and reformation (tajdid) approach as a solu-
tion for Muslim societies. These include Rifa‘a al-Tahtawi (d. 1873) and
Shaykh Muhammad ‘Abduh (d. 1905), who focused on the role of
Islamic philosophical principles, and established the coexistence of
revealed knowledge and individually sought rational knowledge.81
  In the modern era, however, the decline of the Ottoman Empire and
the progress of Europe, and the West in general, gave rise to two
related phenomena, colonialism in the Islamic lands and the rise of
contemporary Islamic revivalism. Revivalists ultimately wanted ‘to
introduce more Islamic influences into the lives of Muslims who have
been subject to Western currents of thought and practice, particularly
in the wake of the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt’.82 In actual fact, they
found themselves at odds with the new nation-state regimes, which, as
discussed above, promoted de-Islamization, nationalism, and secular-
ization of Muslim societies in Sunni countries. The obvious examples
include Atatürk’s Turkey, Tunisia, or even the Shah’s Iran; the rapid
Westernization process and the replacement of the ‘ulama’ class inten-
sified the wave of new revivalism.
  On the socio-political level, one can track the Sunni Islamic modern
renewal and political revivalism to Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d. 1897),
‘Abduh’s teacher and compatriot. Al-Afghani examined and reflected
on the roots of European–Western supremacy. He argued that the

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 THE HIJAZ
tools of modern science would bring about significant progress for
Muslims, and would curb the hegemony of the West. His efforts were
anchored in reviving the concept of ijtihad (innovation through inde-
pendent interpretation, reasoning, and jurisprudence), as a primary
stream in Islamic philosophy. Al-Afghani was driven by a political ori-
entation against European colonialism and the expansionism of the
West in the Islamic lands. He sought to reconcile religion with the
modernism that had brought about Western development.
Nevertheless, al-Afghani and ‘Abduh saw themselves as intellectually
‘anti-traditionalists’, and opposed a ‘blind’ imitation of the Other. They
were selective in incorporating those elements that brought about
Muslim socio-political statecraft. They would borrow modern Western
knowledge and immerse it in an Islamic framework.83 Politically, al-
Afghani was interested in maintaining the religious orientation of gov-
ernment. He therefore advocated for the revival of the institution of
the Caliphate, as a symbolic force that would unite Muslims from ‘India
and East Asia’ all the way with those in ‘the Arab world and elsewhere’.
In adopting such a doctrine, he believed the Ottoman Caliphate would
be strengthened on the international relations level.
  Despite the existence of the Caliphate at the time—at least symboli-
cally—there was a strong surge of revivalist movements in some
Islamic countries, mostly because of anti-colonialism and the fight for
self-determination. Crucially, revivalists constructed a convenient
opposition political ideology to drive religious discourse and popular
sentiment as a means of mobilization against the colonizers. Following
the failure of the Islamic political project crafted by al-Afghani and
other reformists, the subsequent empowerment of Islamic traditional
thought came about with two main trends: (a) ‘reformists’, who pri-
oritized the need to solve internal threats over external threats to Islam
emanating from foreign powers or colonialism; and (b) the ‘traditional-
ists’, who prioritized the battle against external threats, especially
colonization. The increased wave of colonization effectively led to the
failure of the first trend in achieving significant internal reformation.
The classical view of what constitutes dar al-islam, the territory of
Islam, and dar al-harb, the territory of war, was crucial in forming their
understanding of statehood and society. Many went as far as rejuvenat-
ing doctrines of Islamic governance on the removal of a Muslim ruler

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
and governance by non-Muslims as a fundamental legal departure in
the form and nature of statehood and of people’s identity—thereby
justifying religious fatwas to either fight under the banner of jihad
against the colonizers or emigrate from those territories that had lost
their ‘Islamic’ identity.84
  Although some revivalists, such as ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi
(1855–1902), pioneered another view of political governance by pro-
posing the revival of an Arab Caliphate, the radical transformation of
the political map in the wake of the First World War—followed by the
fall of the Ottoman Caliphate—impacted revivalist tendencies among
many Muslims, who struggled to reconcile Muslim unity and political
existence on both the national and global levels. They reasoned that
these shifts were caused by both internal decay and external pressures.
As a result, for many revivalists the main driver for revivalism was,
ultimately, the protection of the threatened umma, Muslim unity, and
culture, against the invader.

— The Essence of Revivalism?

According to Radwan al-Sayyid the outcome of the revivalism move-
ment in the region has branched in two ideological directions. The first
one is the major militant Islamic revivalists, such as the Salafist revival-
ism of Wahhabism in Najd, primarily in response to internal decay
rather than external threats.85 Politically, there was no effective strong
central government, which allowed the militant Wahhabi revivalists to
entrench their political alliance with Imam Saud, leading to their rapid
spread in Arabia. Crucially, the Wahhabi school was not concerned with
the idea of the re-establishment of the Caliphate system. This is in part
because of the movement’s reliance on the firm anti-Mongol political
doctrinal origins of Ibn Taymiyya and his new model of the post-
caliphal age, in which he ‘emphasised the duty of all Muslims to live’,
and the duty of the sovereign to ‘command’,86 in accordance with the
Shari’a. In this case Islamic law was derived only from the authoritative
sources of the Qur’an and Hadith.87 Accordingly, Wahhabism relied on
Ibn Taymiyya’s jurisprudential model, ‘obedience to the commander’
(wali al-amr) in which the Shari’a and al-siyasa al-shar‘iyya (government
by religious law)88 replaces the Caliphate as the covenant between God

301
 THE HIJAZ
and his umma and therefore as the cornerstone of the Islamic state. Ibn
Taymiyya framed his theory of government on ‘authority of command’,
relying on two verses of the Qur’an: ‘God commands that you render
back the trusts to those to whom they are due; and that when you rule
among people, you rule with justice’; and ‘O Believers! Obey God, and
Obey the Messenger and those of you who are in Authority’.89
  The second movement, on the other hand, was Revivalist
Fundamentalism (al-usuliyya al-ihya’iyya), which took place outside
Saudi Arabia and sought to attain legitimacy by establishing alternative
forms of socio-political associations, societies, and organizations,
wherein loyalty is to the murshid (guide or teacher), as with the Muslim
Brotherhood. This second category is mostly influenced by different
ideas of renewal and revivalism, such as those of al-Afghani, as well as
Salafi figures such as Rashid Rida; and, socially by the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt—and later on their offshoots around the Islamic
world. While strongly against the secular model of the nation-state and
Western values, the most important concern for Revivalist
Fundamentalism was the ideological foundations of the new nation-
state model in the region, and, specifically, how to benefit from its
shortcomings and failures—in addition to the systematic countering of
the ‘imposed’ Western culture and way of life through Islamization.
  The establishment of Islamist organizations, such as the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna (1906–49),90 and
Jama‘at-i Islami in Pakistan91 by Abul-‘Ala al-Mawdudi, discussed ear-
lier, were core elements of an organized response to continued Islamic
decline, foreign influences, and imperialism; but they also a threat to
nationalist regimes. The core shared principles between these revivalist
organizations and movements are: (a) that Islam constitutes a compre-
hensive ideology for individuals, the state, and society; (b) the restora-
tion of Islamic rule, or, as it is framed by some idealistic observers, ‘the
golden age of Islam’, which requires a ‘return to Islam’ and its empow-
erment in both state and society; (c) implementation of Islamic law
(Shari’a) and hakimiyya (the sovereignty of God’s law) in the Muslim
polity.92 In just a few years, the two revivalist movements were able to
achieve transnational expansion, inspiring other groups in Syria,
Jordan, Sudan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. The influential writings of
al-Banna and Mawdudi as well as Qutb represented an alternative

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
Islamist view of state and society, in which they were able to link the
realities of modern life with the values and norms of Islam—as they
interpreted it.

— Revival in the Sunni World Today

In the post-Second World War era, Western interests continued to
influence the political affairs of Islamic countries after colonization, and
nationalist and secularist programmes increased the divisions within
Islamic states—in favour of the revivalists. In this context, they man-
aged to strengthen their presence in these countries through the dis-
courses of legitimacy, and expanded in the vacuum created by a lack of
legitimate religious policies and social welfare conditions. Eventually,
through these pressures, and in response to societal demands, many
governments had to reconsider the question of religion in their policies
and national legislation; in some cases going as far as amending their
constitutions—as in Egypt in 1980.
  It becomes clear that, among Sunni revivalists, there is an ultimate
commitment to Islamic governance and the creation of an Islamic state.
Crucially, they share a common view over the social and conservative
issues relating to Islamic law and the implementation of Shari’a within
a state. That being said, however, one should not overlook the fact that
there are actually differing views between Sunni revivalists regarding
the exact model of statehood, based on a variety of interpretations and
methods. Accordingly, Islamists or revivalists are not all the same
politically: there are, among others, moderates, conservatives, and
radicals. The moderate majority would argue for a peaceful religious
and social revolution, or, to be precise, a ‘reformation’—through the
legitimate channels that would be allowed by the regime and within the
established system of government.93 Conversely, the minority radical
jurists—who often make their views known very loudly nowadays—
tend to choose more drastic approaches, including armed struggle,
which they justify as ‘obligatory’ on theological, ideological, and politi-
cal grounds. Given the nature of the state systems they are opposing,
radicals would argue that there are no effective channels for peaceful
reform under autocratic regimes that repress all forms of opposition—
and especially the Islamists. Thus, they regard those regimes as illegiti-

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 THE HIJAZ
mate; which in turn allows (if not compels) armed opposition or
‘defence’ against these governments.94 For radicals, jihad, in these
contexts and circumstances, is a religious duty upon all ‘true believ-
ers’, whereas Muslims who are not following this view are not just
sinners, but are disavowed as ‘apostates’ or ‘enemies of God’.95 As
such, this type of radicalism takes the same approach that we discussed
above with relation to early Wahhabism, when the ultra-orthodox
Wahhabis considered that even other Muslims who are not strictly loyal
(al-wala’) and followers of the teaching of Wahhabism are not just sin-
ners but worse than infidels (kuffar) and must be disavowed (al-bara’).
  On a transnational level, it should be noted, radical jihadi move-
ments such as al-Qaida are considered by many as anti-imperialist
movements that adopt violent methods primarily against Western and
(neo-)colonial influence. Al-Qaida members are concerned with fight-
ing the influence of non-Muslims in Islamic lands, or what they call the
‘far enemy’ who support the ‘near enemy’ (the national authoritarian
rulers), and seek to liberate Islamic lands from non-Muslim rule.96
  In fact, while the Iranian Islamic Revolution has encouraged the
Sunni revivalists to ever more strongly advance their agenda, and find
inspiration in the Iranian model of an Islamic state, it also alarmed
Sunni leaders into compromise, and a willingness to adopt religion as
a tool of politicization and negotiation with the revivalists.97 That being
said, the most important point that all Sunni rulers, including those in
Saudi Arabia, find threatening, is the ‘exportation’ of the Iranian
Revolution to other neighbouring countries.98 Analytically, this explains
why Arab regimes, specifically those in the Arabian Peninsula, are
deeply suspicious, not only of the rise to power of Sunni revivalists in
Egypt and Tunisia in the post-2011 uprisings, but also the success of
Iran’s revolutionary Shi’ite Islam, which would bring about changes in
the structure of the state system in the Arab world in the name of
Islamic governance.
  Finally, as pointed out by many political scientists, contemporary
revivalists, both moderate and radical, are not necessarily backward,
uneducated, or anti-modern. Nor are they all terrorists. In fact, overall,
the opposite tends to be the case: most of them are enlightened, well-
rounded graduates of prestigious national and international universities.
Moreover, the vast majority of them did not study religious studies or

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
jurisprudence, but rather engineering, medicine, and science; their back-
grounds mostly lower middle class and middle class.99
  In his interpretation of the rise of Revivalist Fundamentalism in the
region before the 2011 Arab Spring, al-Sayyid points out that it could
be for three reasons. Firstly, the middle class did not like the violence
adopted by the radical and jihadi groups, but thought that the Muslim
Brotherhood’s methods would be a better option for well-educated
bourgeois youths. The second reason he identifies is that many intel-
lectuals and scholars endorsed the legal and legitimate qualifications of
the Muslim Brotherhood to participate in the political (democratic)
process in question—not necessarily because they believed in the
Islamists’ ideology, but because they opposed the dictators and authori-
tarian regimes.100 The third reason, he argues, is the decline of the
religious institutions and their dependence on the patronage of political
authorities, a state of affairs that has shifted popular support to the
Islamists—and, specifically the Muslim Brotherhood, who are actively
participating in social and political discourse, and above all were criti-
cal of the political establishment.101
  At the same time, it is important to note that between 1930 and
1960 revivalists were able to develop the conceptual framework of
what they call the ‘comprehensive Islamic system’, with its emphasis
on concepts of Islamic hakimiyya through slogans such as ‘Islam is reli-
gion and state’. Furthermore, in addition to providing social services
such as building hospitals and education centres that effectively catered
to large populations in the absence of state institutions, their electoral
slogan was ‘Islam is the solution’. From an external dimension, the
1967 military defeat in the Arab–Israeli Six-Day War was a crucial
point in the course of Islamic revivalism in the region. In fact, it was a
major catalyst for new directions in Islamic revival; many of these
emerged from a reaction to this defeat. According to Ayubi it decisively
increased the militant neo-fundamentalist Islamic groups.102 Overall,
the political popularity of some Arab revivalist movements and leaders
stems from Arab public awareness of the depth of social, economic, and
political problems that afflict the Arab world.103
  The doctrinal evolution of Revivalist Fundamentalism has been cru-
cial over the last thirty-five years, as its development helped shape the
way these currents and trends have expanded in the region.

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Structurally, it has influenced the internal transformation of revivalist
groups from charities, social groups, and associations into political
actors, who became concerned with the political discourses in their
states, and embarked on a quest to gain legitimacy within both their
societies and their states, as well as changing the structure of both,
based on their own worldview and interpretations. Moreover, they
have taken on self-improvement in the application of conceptual juris-
prudence and ideology—particularly hakimiyya and the ‘comprehensive
Islamic system’. Consequently, in parallel they were the benefactors of
the failure of the Arab nation-state experiment and the political elites.
Their relative successes at a time of dictatorial government and elite
failures led, in turn, to the increased popularity of ‘doctrinal revival-
ism’. Revivalists were able to develop a narrative to counter both
internal and external injustices; this was central to the dynamics that
fuelled the appeal of the Muslim Brotherhood. Lastly, it should be
noted that the re-emergence of the Salafi movement—and, more dan-
gerously, the division into jihadi currents—in turn directed more
popular support for the Muslim Brotherhood and similar groups as a
viable model of wasatiyya (Islamic moderation).104 Thus, as Abu Khalil
and Haddad aptly observed:
The late-twentieth-century revivalist movements had a ssahhwah [revival]
   

feature rather than renewal or reformist features. They underlined their

Islamic identity, especially in countries where Muslims constitute a
minority and emphasized Islamic ethos and practices. Although they
usually speak of the universality of the Islamic message, each of these
movements is molded by local and/or national frameworks.105
  The 2011 Arab Spring uprisings opened the gates for all political and
religious groups, providing space for the intellectual reclassification of
Islamic political thought. Some observers have examined the situation
of Islamists in the wake of these important events and provided a very
interesting classification of contemporary Islamist movements and
evaluation where they stand in relation to (liberal) democracy. Bokhari
and Senzai categorized them in three groups: (a) ‘participatory’
Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, who are actively part of the
political system, participate in electoral procedures, and reject and
condemn violent means of change; (b) ‘conditionalist’ Islamists, such
as the Salafis, who see a fundamental conflict between divine sover-

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eignty and the human sovereignty offered by democracy; and (c) ‘rejec-
tor’ Islamists, such as al-Qaida and transnational jihadists, who do not
believe in democratic procedures, and advance a violent ideology that
aims to bring change and the desired politico-ideological outcomes
through the use of force and acts of terrorism.106
  In Egypt and Turkey moderate revivalists believed in a peaceful
means of changing society and politics. They distanced themselves from
the radical militant groups that emerged in the post-1970 period. They
supported political participation, thereby accepting the rules of the
political game set by the secular nation-states. Gradually, the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt and the Justice and Development Party (AKP)
in Turkey were able to secure significant electoral success over the
years, and showed both radical militant and secular elites that they have
popular support that could push them forward to governance. The
Arab Spring opened the public sphere for many Arab revivalists to
openly and freely present themselves to public notice; not to mention
the rise of the Salafi movement in Egypt, which was significantly
inspired by the Wahhabi ideology.107 Nonetheless, the lack of political
heritage, democratic experience, or governance of some of those
Islamists was crippling. It was also detrimental in affecting the out-
comes of the Arab Spring.
  Overall, Sunni Islam’s experiment with the ballot box was a failure.
The first democratically elected president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi,
who won the elections with the decisive popular support of the Muslim
Brotherhood in 2012, was overthrown in a military coup a few days after
his first year in office. This was followed by a targeted campaign of violent
repression against the Muslim Brotherhood and other revivalist groups
by the new military regime, which sealed the country’s return to author-
itarianism. Alarmingly, religious repression could very well reproduce a
new wave of radicalization of Faith Militant or radical revivalists in the
future, as it did during the 1950s and 1960s. On the other hand, in
Tunisia, under the leadership of the intellectual figure Rashid
Ghannouchi, the Islamist revivalist Nahda Party has managed to avoid the
fate of Egypt. Interestingly, it showed a political maturity that legitimized
its negotiations with other political forces, facilitating an agreement on
an inclusive governance model which involves all political actors.
  In Turkey, however, Islamic governance and revivalism have taken
quite a different route in recent times. The long-standing Turkish politi-

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cal leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoggan, who has effectively been in power
 

since 2003 (as prime minister and president), has been gradually steer-
ing the country in a ‘neo-Ottomanist’ direction. Turkey was diachronic-
ally perceived as perhaps the most successful example of a secular
democracy in any predominantly Sunni Muslim society. It has been also
deeply immersed in the Euro-Atlantic structures, and is a candidate
country for European Union accession. In the context of the Arab
Spring, Turkey was often put forward as a model Islamist example.
However, over the course of the past decade, several policies advanced
by the ruling AKP—and spearheaded personally by Erdoggan and his
 

closest political allies—have rolled back several secular aspects of the

Turkish socio-political framework, and, gradually, the more secular
(‘Westernized’) way of life too, from the use of Islamic (and neo-
Ottoman) symbols at the top political level to a shift in the political
rhetoric and a general return to greater religious conservatism, as well
as a broader reintroduction of Islam in several aspects of both public
and private life. It is indeed a case where revivalism is being advanced
through a mixture of top-down and bottom-up processes. Given the
secular experience of the country in the past century, this new course
has naturally brought Turkish society to a major crossroad, with a 2017
referendum on expanding the powers of the Turkish president
(Erdoggan) finding the country divided (51–49 per cent). Overall, it
     

appears that some indications of authoritarianism are emerging, while

a particular ‘return to Islam’ has been steadily unfolding in Turkey,
especially since the early 2010s, with important socio-political and
geopolitical implications.

Revolutionary Shi’ism: Iran

— Origins of State Shi’afication
We have so far discussed different phases of the Wahhabi statehood
experience, looking at its evolution through time, since Ibn ‘Abd al-
Wahhab’s pact with Muhammad ibn Saud and the first Saudi state. In
this section we trace the historical origins of a different statehood
experience, that of the Shi’a Muslims, tracing the history of Shi’ism in
the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
  While the Timurid era and its Turco-Mongol roots is often seen as
the historiographical launch point in the development of Persianate
statehood in the pre-modern period, the imperium of Twelver (or
Imamate) Shi’ism in the Safavid project108 is arguably more central in
the statehood debate. Shi’afication and statehood for the large part
were often seen by scholars as an evolutionary process in the ebb and
flow of social and political forces in a larger context. To unravel this
historiographical discourse one needs to examine the scholarly
approach to three Shi’afication aspects of the Safavid project: (a) char-
ismatic negotiations with Shi’ism; (b) the jurists and the Shi’afication
programme; and (c) patronage and projection of Shi’ism.
  The migration of Levantine émigrés of Jabal ‘Amil109 to spread the
Shi’ite system of jurisprudence and statecraft is curious, as the ‘major-
ity of Arab Shi’i clerics held firm to the traditional Shi’i refusal to serve
any government, even one that claimed to be Shi’i, in the absence of
the Hidden Imam’.110 Additionally, many were put off by the extremist
manifestations of Safavid Shi’ism.111 The result was a religious impe-
rium that empowered the Safavid house throughout periods of interde-
pendence, alliance, and animosity with the Qizilbash and the urban
elite. It started with Shah Isma‘il I (1488–1524),112 followed by Shah
Tahmasp (1524–76),113 who institutionalized the ‘Amili émigré in the
state, starting with Shaykh ‘Ali ‘Abd al-‘Ali al-Karaki (al-Muhaqqiq al-
Thani, d. 1534) and culminated with Shah ‘Abbas I (1587–1629),114 all
of whom were driven by various political, social, and economic forces,
among others. How much of it was due to the conscientiousness of the
Safavid shahs or courts is speculative, and remains unresolved among
scholars such as Kathryn Babayan, Said Amir Arjomand, Andrew
Newman, and Rula Abisaab, who saw differing levels of Shi’afication at
work in this period.115
  Shah ‘Abbas I tends to be the most celebrated in the propagation of
a Shi’ite state.116 Beyond his Husayni genealogy, Shah Isma‘il I had
relied on his personal charisma and the notion of sacred kingship, and
was completely comfortable with informal decentralized government,
through religious authority, and the revolutionary relations between
his original military and religious supporters as they transitioned into
a new political order: ‘shared sovereignty.’ His Shi’afication entailed
‘Sufi-mindedness’, as Babayan called it.117 Shah ‘Abbas, a hundred

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 THE HIJAZ
years later, built the institutions of the state, centralized government,
and proclaimed his commitment to Shi’ism in his capital, Isfahan, and
all of its shrines and landmarks. Power was in the hands of constituen-
cies: sayyids, urban Tajik notables, ‘ulama’, Ghulams, and Qizilbash
with formal offices were all functioning with legal authority. Shi’ism
entailed ‘Shari’a-mindedness’ by legal scholars. It had become a cen-
tralized state religion with a centralized understanding of sovereignty;
unification, akin to the idea of the ‘nation’, was more important than
all other notions.
  In the sixteenth century, at the beginning of the Safavid project, the
Safavid reliance on the Qizilbash, and its steppe culture, was important
to consolidate authority and legitimacy. Shah Isma‘il’s utilization of
Imamate faith, as Babayan argues, ‘points to an awareness that to unify
and centralize his domains it would be imperative to alter the nature of
Safavid legitimacy and to forge a uniform religion: heterodoxies like
his own had to be contained’.118 In return, this meant that they had to
observe extreme devotional rituals, such as the cursing of the first
three caliphs, and show devotion to the new faith and the charisma of
Isma‘il as Shah of Iran.119 By 1508, even though Shah Isma‘il had linked
himself with the ‘orthodox’ lineage of the Twelve Imams and had
toured the Shi’ite shrine cities with the prominent ‘alim Shaykh ‘Ali
al-Karaki, he still relied on Qizilbash Islam.120 In Bashir’s words, ‘the
Safavids represent a rare case in Islamic history in which a religious
movement successfully transformed itself into a ruling house. As the
main agents who enacted this transformation, Shah Ismail and his
Qizilbash followers stood at a historical moment marked by the over-
lapping of religious and political paradigms.’121 Just as negotiations with
Shi’ism were beginning, Newman asserts that Shah Isma‘il’s heterodox
spiritual discourse was especially appealing to both Turk and Tajik. This
was matched by practical recognition of the emergence of the Safavid
project, facilitating the transition from the Aqquyunlu to Shah Isma‘il I
and the Safavid house and intertwining their fortunes with, and thus
furthering their acceptance of and loyalty to, each other, Shah Isma‘il,
and the Safavid enterprise itself.122 In the end Shah Isma‘il had to rely
on the support of the ‘ulama’ to curb the Qizilbash.123
  Importantly, Shi’afication is conventionally attributed to external
factors.124 The Ottoman Sunni drive resulting in the defensive
Shi’afication of Iran could be an oversimplification, as the Safavids

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
looked to establish their state through successive rulers. Shi’afication
came about as a result of tensions as well as a reactionary form of
political consolidation, as al-Jaf describes:
The appearance of the Safavid State was the clear incarnation of a nation-
alistic, religious Persia. This incarnation was a catalyst for the creation of
a unified Persia, after having been mere parts of the former Islamic state.
The Shi’i faith became a primary agent leading Persians to aggressive
action to counter the hegemony of the Ottoman state, the self-pro-
claimed inheritor of the Islamic Caliphate, by declaring Shi’ism as the
official state religion in the face of the invading Ottoman forces.125
  There seem to be four essential themes relating to Shi’afication and
the Safavid project. Firstly, the catalysts of the programme were largely
scholars; the ‘ulama’ from Jabal ‘Amil were central in that transition.
Secondly, the discussion of the prophetic lineage played a key role
starting throughout the two centuries of Safavid rule, starting with
Safavid genealogy,126 ghulat devotion, and the contested role of the
sayyids (or sadat), which was debated heatedly between Arjomand and
Newman and expanded on by Babayan.127 Thirdly, Sufism is also an
important theme in the project, from its formation—looking at the
mystical and ‘Alid aspects that it shares with Imamate Shi’ism—to the
disavowal thereof, all the way to its second century, where Sufi philo-
sophical and political notions re-emerged. Finally, there is the clerical
court itself, and the role that the agents of religion—the ‘ulama’—ulti-
mately played.
  It was Shah Isma‘il I and his son Shah Tahmasp who invited a number
of Arab scholars from Jabal ‘Amil ‘who expressed willingness to sup-
port temporal authority and Shi’ite statehood’.128 The shahs, on the
other hand, were interested in ‘reconciling not Sunnism with Shi’ism
but rather Qizilbash heterodoxy, animism and sufism with legally based
Twelver Shi’ism’.129 The ‘Amilis were quick to utilize ahl al-bayt devo-
tionalism,130 and were able to translate their doctrine into Persian,
thereby reconciling and abridging internal class conflicts and popular-
izing the orthodoxy that was also a process of Persianization.131 Babayan
explains that ‘by the age of Shah ‘Abbas I (1587–1629) … the ‘ulama
were being recruited in large numbers for a variety of clerical posts,
perhaps due to the marriage that had taken place between intellectual
styles from Jabal ‘Amil and Iran’.132 Shah ‘Abbas I benefited from the

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legacy and reformation of the Qizilbash and a centralized state, pro-
moted the ‘Amili clerics, and used their legal orderly rigour to govern
the state and confront the Ottomans.

➢ Promoting the Programme: Sayyids and Local Elites

Shah Tahmasp trusted the sayyids profoundly, and he continued to sup-
port and solidify their interests through the sadrs (religious functionar-
ies). However, on several occasions al-Karaki did challenge the ‘clerical
notables’.133 Arjomand was the first to identify a role for this distinct
class as sadat, while Newman argues that none of the individuals singled
out as hostiles were designated as sadat.134 Sayyids and non-sayyids inter-
married, and contributed to the Shi’ite juridical tradition. With the
occultation of the Twelfth Imam, it became necessary to regulate the
khums tax, which was designated for the sayyids, and was especially
important to those with modest funds. The sayyids held a distinguished
position at court.135 Sayyid families were decentralized, and managed
the shrines with independent funds during the reign of Shah ‘Abbas.136
A sadr was the highest-ranking religious functionary in Shi’ism.137 They
were the bureaucratic elite,138 and the wazirs (senior ministers) were
drawn from among them.139 During the reign of Shah ‘Abbas I Tajiks,
including many sayyids, also continued to be prominent in both central
and provincial administration. All those holding the post of sadr were
Tajik sayyids; most were also related by marriage to the Safavid house
itself.140 Tajiks were comptrollers of the realm’s finances,141 which was
relevant in the sphere of regulating taxes. The appropriation of land by
the Crown by means of a policy of depopulation led to a rise in the
fortunes of state bureaucrats. The grand vizirs were diverse groups of
people, largely drawn from competing constituencies of ghulams
(Persian clerical administrators), including the sayyids.142 All in all, the
sayyids and elements of the local elite together promoted the pro-
gramme, while a new dynamic of social transformation (and redistribu-
tion of power) was unfolding in parallel.

➢ Ideology in Operation: From Scholarship to Doctrine

The local elites had their own history and relationship with Sufism, but
the sayyids soon clashed with the ghulat.143 The Safavid project’s nego-

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
tiation with Sufism consisted of a number of phases, and resulted in a
move to mainstream Shi’ism. Sufism also regained popularity, as its
doctrine was translated into Persian. Finally, the court itself was
affected by the relations between Usulis and Akhbaris.144
  During the time of Shah ‘Abbas all scholars became experts in doc-
trine and law. As his legitimacy and authority were questioned he
became more overtly observant; for example, he encouraged Muharram
ceremonies. Furthermore, there was an attempt to popularize Twelver
discourse by utilizing vernacular Persian for benefit of the masses. The
attempt was led by Shaykh Bahai, Mir Damad (a sayyid), and in particu-
lar, Sayyid Sultan al-Ulama Mohamad Taqi Majlisi (d. 1659), who was
able to employ both language and spiritual discourse in a philosophical
enquiry into Twelver Shi’ism.145 Building on al-Karaki’s thinking, they
expanded the idea of the general role of the mujtahid, and re-examined
the issue of Friday prayers.146 Newman argues that the Isfahan School
benefited from the integration of sayyid and non-sayyid elements.147 They
served as qadis in provinces such as Hamadan and continued to function
as jurisconsults for Twelver Shi’ism.148

➢ Patronage and Public Display of the Programme of Shi’ism

A) The Safavids and the imperative of Shi’ism
Isfahan became the centre around which Shi’ism was consolidated. Said
Amir Arjomand argued that the reasons behind the adoption of Twelver
Shi’ism included the eradication of millennialism, the persecution of
popular Sufism, the eradication of Sunnism, and the propagation of
Shi’ism. Ideology was not codified in law. In this period of Shi’ite state-
hood, the ‘ulama’ were ultimately administrators and regulators:
The sharia-minded (purist) ‘ulama’s version of Imamism had finally
been enthroned at court. An edict (1106/1695) prohibiting all non-
sharia activities, sealed by the Shah and signed by the Shaikh al-Islam of
Isfahan (Majlisi II) and six other prominent ‘ulama, was to be read in all
mosques.149

B) Patronage of the Shi’ite Programme and the Use of Symbolism

During Shah ‘Abbas I’s time, the number of religious monuments
equalled if not exceeded the political ones, which points to a particular

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effort to reassert Safavid spiritual legitimacy as a result of the domestic
political challenges. Newman suggests that the ‘promotion of the asso-
ciation with Twelver Shi’ism in particular was all the more important
in light of the Safavids’ continued loss of control over the Shi’i shrine
cities to the West’.150 Symbols include descriptions of Shah ‘Abbas as
‘… the propagator of the faith of the infallible Imams … Abbas, the
Husaynid, the Musavid’.151 Other inscriptions include the Prophet’s
Hadith ‘I am the City of Knowledge and ‘Ali is its Gate’. His Shi’ite
commitment extended to his personal patronage of Mashhad, the site
of the eighth Imam’s tomb. He also visited all the holy shrines in
Kazimiyyah, Samira, Karbala, and Najaf, spending money and resources
including offering his army to help in constructions. Sunnis would
describe him as a ‘hurtful monster’ while Shi’ites called him ‘the saint
of justice, civilization and pursuit of righteousness’.152

C) Public Displays of Shi’ism

In 1601 Shah ‘Abbas I embarked on the ‘symbolic act’153 that marked the
growth of the newly reconfigured Shi’afied Safavid household.154 Shah
‘Abbas ‘centralized state symbols and the associational dimensions of the
monumental arches, royal mosque, the bazaars and schools around the
area of Meydan-i Shah in Isfahan after the transfer of the capital’.155
According to Babayan, Shah ‘Abbas’s pilgrimage from Isfahan to
Mashhad was a ‘public performance of pious devotion’ to the Imams of
the Safavid house, which was supported by his public declaration of a
nazr, a vow marking his commitment to the Imami faith.156 Several
more acts of high symbolism followed, initiating further displays of
Shi’ism throughout the empire. A prominent example included an asso-
ciation between the central square of Isfahan and the Ka’ba in Makkah.157
Babayan asserts that ‘the Maydan was the second Ka’ba as is inscribed on
the walls of the new Friday prayer mosque’.158 The symbolism in these
associations were also suggestive of the parallel reverence owed to the
Shah, which, as the analogy of the Maydan and Makkah suggests, is the
same as the respect and reverence owed to God.159
  Shah ‘Abbas looked to develop Shi’ism in the provinces beyond
urban development and doctrine. He employed poets to celebrate the
Imams and their infallibility. Al-Jaf describes an incident concerning

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Shah ‘Abbas I and the poet Muhtashim al-Kashani. The latter wrote a
poem flattering his patron, and in response ‘Abbas said, ‘Aren’t I but a
dog amongst the guard dogs of the gateway of the shrine of Ali and his
House. Surely, they deserve the praise and glory because I am nothing
next to them.’ This perhaps best summarizes the institutionalized form
of Shi’afication that consumed and later defined Iran’s revolution.160
  The development of political doctrine was different in the case of
Shi’ism, as we can see. It was closely connected with the Safavid period
in Iran, which lasted from 1501 to 1722. The key milestone in the
Safavid project entailed a state-sanctioned conversion to Twelver
Shi’ism to consolidate a Persian polity. Upon adopting Shi’ism, Shah
Isma‘il was the first to rely on the Shi’a doctrine of the messianic ruler-
ship of the Hidden Twelfth Imam, and imported émigré ‘ulama’ from
south Lebanon to promote it.161 In essence, the effect of the institution-
alization of Shi’ism in Iran accelerated the ‘Iranization’ of the Shi’ite
doctrine to an almost irreversible extent, as traditional clerical struc-
tures had practically been erased.

— The Rise of the Jurist: Velayat-e Faqih

It was not until Khomeini’s seventeen Najaf lectures in 1970 that col-
lectively formed the handbook on the ‘mandate of the jurist’, Velayat-e
Faqih: Hokmat-e Islami,162 and its derivative Iranian experience of 1979,
that Islamic scholars distinguished the largely anachronistic discussions
of the ideas of sovereignty (Westphalia), with the ideas of nationalism
and the nation-state that emerged much later. Islamic Revivalism
(sahwa), influenced by such notions, seems to have found a degree of
reconciliation with the nation-state through Khomeini’s hybridization
of (Shi’ite) Islamic sovereignty, constitutionalism, and the creation of
the republican nation-state.
  Revivalist discourse minimizes sectarianism between Sunni and
Shi’ite Islam. Al-Qaradawi163 considered the Iranian Revolution to be a
fruit of Islamic Revivalism and Khomeini’s creation of a ‘state for Islam’
as revitalizing Islamic hope worldwide.164
  Ali Shariati was a key ideologue of the Iranian Revolution, who dis-
cussed the need for an ‘intellectual revolution and Islamic renaissance,
a cultural and ideological movement based on the deepest foundations

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of our beliefs, equipped with the richest that we possess’.165 Shariati
expanded the reconciliatory Shi’ite philosophy, and argued that the
Safavid project was a defining moment in the history of Shi’ism, as it
created what he refers to as Safavid Shi’ism, as opposed to ‘Alid
Shi’ism, the latter being what he deems as authentic.166
  The Islamic link between Safavid Iran and the 1979 Iranian regime
is indeed evident in the role of Shi’ite ‘ulama’ in Iranian society since
the Safavid-era jurist Majlisi and others.167 By 1722 the Shi’ite clergy
were so influential in Iran that they could openly voice discontent with
the rulers, and exercised influence within the Qajar Shah’s court. The
compounded popular and clergy discontent with Shah Reza Pahlavi
eventually ignited the Islamic Revolution in which the clergy were
undoubtedly a decisive element.168
  Ayatollah Murtada Mutahhari, a disciple of Khomeini, advanced the
political role of Sayyid Jamal al-Afghani in Iran.169 He describes al-
Afghani’s solicitations to Shi’ite clergy as universal Islamic evidence
that he ‘expected them to initiate the revolution’.170 He attributes this
to Shi’ism’s significant ‘autonomy’ from the ruling authority, which is
an argument also embraced by Said Arjomand.171
  In a similar manner to Vanessa Martin, Mohamad Sayyid Rassas
enlarges on the historical relationship between Sunnis and Shi’ites
despite centuries of tensions.172 He argues that the Muslim Brother­
hood founder was the direct successor to the Revivalist movement of
al-Afghani, Shaykh Muhammad ‘Abduh, and Shaykh Rashid Rida. He
claims that al-Afghani was a Shi’ite aware of the complications of
Anglo-Russian imperialism and areas of unity under a Caliphate, and
‘Abduh himself was a narrator of Imam ‘Ali’s Nahj al-Balagha.173 Abbas
Khamah Yar produced a study on relations between Iran and the
Muslim Brotherhood before the Iranian Revolution took place.174
  But it was Sayyid Qutb who really inspired revolutionary Islamic ide-
ology, specifically his 1964 book Milestones. More interestingly, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, translated
several of Sayyid Qutb’s books in the 1966 volumes The Future is for this
Religion and Islam and the Problem ofWestern Civilization, and parts of Qutb’s
seminal In the Shadows of the Qur’an, calling him the ‘intellectual mujahid’
and describing the message as belonging to all. During his term in office,
Khamenei introduced Sayyid Qutb’s literature to the preparatory curri-
cula of the Revolutionary Guard.175

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
  Politically, anti-Western narrative fortified the adoption of the Sunni
doctrine of hakimiyya, according to which ‘God’s divine law’ rather
than man-made law prevails. Hukumat-i was not simply the political
term for government, which Khomeini employs in his foundational
handbook Houkumat-i Islami, but also an actualization of former Islamic
political narratives. Rassas asserts that it is impossible to isolate the
velayat-e faqih trend and Khomeini’s concept of Islamic government in
the 1960s from the concept of hakimiyya, which was first introduced as
an epistemological book by al-Mawdudi in Four Key Concepts of the Quran
and later influenced the writing of Sayyid Qutb. That narrative is closely
connected within the Najaf Lectures.176 Khomeini adopted Qutb’s con-
cept of hakimiyya in his implementation of velayat-e faqih.177
  Khomeini advocated that religion and law were now integrated, as
‘God’s rule’. Khomeini encapsulated political Islam, populism, and the
revolutionary tendency as a single doctrine by asserting that the power
to legislate depends on hakimiyya. Yet he was adamant that Islamic gov-
ernment is a government of law, and the ruler (hakim) is God alone. God
is the sole legislator, and his law applies to both people and the state
itself; therefore, he reasons, it is a government of sacred law, complete
and perfect.178 In short, a central aim of Khomeini when he delivered the
pivotal 1970s speeches that led to his seminal book Islamic Government:
Governance of the Jurist was to deconstruct the ‘misgivings’ that suggested
that Islamic values, laws, and principles are neither appropriate nor fit-
ting foundations for good, fair, and inclusive governance.179

— Islamic Exceptionalism of 1979: Revolution and the

Constitution
Arjomand offers a Weberian view of Khomeini’s charismatic leader-
ship, and the rise and fall of legitimate authorities of the state.180 He
expands on the exceptionalism of Shi’ite ‘autonomy’ in the process of
establishing traditional legitimacy as a republican model based on
sacred law.181 Vanessa Martin finds that Khomeini was comprehensive
in creating and recreating visions of the state inspired by mysticism all
the way back to Plato’s republicanism.182 While these debates are at the
heart of the revolution itself, they don’t focus on the legalism and con-
stitutionalism of statecraft.

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 THE HIJAZ
  The preamble to the 1979 constitution, adopted after intense debate
in the Iranian majlis (parliament), embodies the sources of inspiration
of the constitution, which are both religious and revolutionary. This
broadly represents the dual legitimacy upon which the revolution rests.
The first is political, in the form of an elected body, and the other cleri-
cal. One could argue that the 1979 constitution is a triumph of Shi’ism,
and Islam in general, over nationalism; perhaps it would be more accu-
rate to say that this specific formulation of Shi’ism paved the way for a
new Iranian nationalism. For example, Article 5 states:
During the Occultation of the Wali al-Asr (may God hasten his reap-
pearance), the wilayah and leadership of the Umma devolve upon the
just [‘adil] and pious [muttaqi] faqih, who is fully aware of the circum-
stances of his age; courageous, resourceful, and possessed of adminis-
trative ability, will assume the responsibilities of this office in accor-
dance with Article 107.
  By using the term umma, the article makes clear that it is a matter
for all Muslims worldwide, although the office in question is an Iranian
national institution. In other words, Iran establishes jurisdiction over
what it sees as transnational Muslim affairs under its own national insti-
tutions. Similar instances throughout the constitution demonstrate that
within its worldview, Iran positions itself as the leader of Shi’a world-
wide, if not all Muslims. An exceptional characteristic of the 1979
constitution and the 1989 amendment following Khomeini’s death is
that it is flexible with regard to the dual political and clerical authority:
it does not require the faqih to be of a strict clerical pedigree. This is
contrasted with generally acceptable Shi’ite jurisprudence, which
maintains that the marja‘ (leader) is chosen by and from amongst his
peers. The interesting factor to note here is that the Council of
Guardians, which elects the faqih, can only be made up of Iranian citi-
zens, thereby excluding non-Iranian clerics or prominent figures from
electing the nominal head of all Shi’a. Once again, this showcases the
subtle intertwining between Iranian national exceptionalism and Shi’ite
doctrine embodied in the Iranian post-revolutionary state.
  Moreover, another noteworthy peculiarity of the velayat-e faqih sys-
tem as defined constitutionally is that it endows the faqih with supreme
power over men, and responsibility only to God. He, the faqih, is the
‘ultimate authority to interpret the sacred Islamic texts and to inter-

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
vene and directly pass legislation on any matter of public policy to
which he determines his authority and expertise to be relevant, and to
arbitrate in any conflict’.183 This is where the contradiction within the
duality of the constitution is most clearly seen. It is arguably the root
of the tensions between the nation-state model and any religiously
inspired polity in its crude form. Nevertheless, the growing discrep-
ancy between the political and clerical legitimacies grew further when
Khamenei was appointed Supreme Leader in 1989, as he did not
qualify for an established juridical title. The subsequent opposition to
his appointment, despite being kept under control, certainly aggra-
vated this crisis of legitimacies. In essence, the effect of the institution-
alization of Shi’ism in Iran accelerated the ‘Iranization’ of the Shi’ite
doctrine almost to an irreversible extent as traditional clerical struc-
tures have practically been erased.
  Despite succumbing to a fatal heart attack two years prior to the
Iranian Revolution, Shariati was perhaps the most prominent critic of
the ‘statization’ of Shi’ism, arguing that it had isolated Iranian Muslims
from the wider global Islamic community, which is overwhelmingly
Sunni. In addition, the nationalization of Shi’ite clergy subordinates it
to Iranian geopolitical interests, which are separate from religious
motives. According to Zubaida, ‘the contradictory duality of sover-
eignties’ is written into the constitution of the Islamic Republic of
Iran: the sovereignty of the popular will, in line with democratic
nation-state constitutions, and a novel principle in politics and gov-
ernment (velayat-e faqih) that places the judiciary under the exclusive
control of the clergy with the provision of extensive revision of codes
to render them Islamic.184
  The concept of constitutional duality contains the notion of two
sovereigns, one being velayat-e faqih, and the other the sovereignty of
popular will (Article 6), which is seen as commensurate with the con-
stitutions of many Western democratic states. The title of the state
itself, the Islamic Republic (jamhouri), invokes the French Revolution
and every subsequent movement in which a nation toppled a monarchy
and replaced it with a republic.
  The most central Islamic element in the state is the principle of
velayet-e faqih, which gives the ruling faqih or the collective equivalent
(the Council of Fuqaha) the supreme authority. The concept is a novel

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 THE HIJAZ
one in the history of Islamic law and government, directly conflicting
with the historical Sunni doctrine (Ibn Taymiyya) of obedience to the
commander (wali al-amr) and further hybridizing the aspirational reviv-
alist ideas of Qutb and others. It is essential, however, to note that
Khomeini, when faced with legal challenges later on, did not shy away
from employing the fundamental Sunni catch-all doctrine of public
good (maslaha).185
  Paradoxically, revolutionary Shi’ite political Islam as expressed in
the revolution has now evolved into a type of nationalism, which was
originally given religious legitimacy ‘at the expense of transnational
solidarities’.186 Incidences of foreign Shi’a communities being used by
Tehran to achieve political goals are, however, not uncommon, such as
the Shi’a of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Notably, in Afghanistan, the
Taliban killed many Shi’a in the city of Mazar-e Sharif.187

— A Sunni Perspective on the Iranian Constitutional State

Mohamad Salim al-Awwa, a recognized expert on Islamic government,
explored the main articles and legal principles of the Iranian constitu-
tion from both an Islamic and a legal perspective. He sees in the Iranian
constitution a non-traditional effort that marks a departure from con-
ventional Shi’ite thought.188 Al-Awwa deconstructed the political
undertones of Imam Khomeini’s institutional thinking and traced his
mobilization of velayat-e-faqih as a legal tool. Through this tactic, al-
Awwa argues, Khomeini effectively turned the classical theory of
velayat-e-faqih into a policy that employed the Shi’ite doctrine of the
occultation of the Twelfth Imam as a tool to overcome the obstacles
presented by the stagnant state of Shi’ite jurisprudence. Thus, accord-
ing to al-Awwa, velayat-e-faqih meant that jurists and scholars (the joint
holders of command) should establish a state that is governed by Islam,
with Shari’a being implemented and policy made by those scholars and
jurists, who need not wait for the return of the Twelfth Imam in order
to establish such an Islamic state.189
  Although al-Awwa underscores a similarity between Imam
Khomeini’s velayat-e-faqih and the thought of the pre-modern al-
Juwayni in their extensive attention to the role of scholars and jurists
in the political landscape, he reasons that a theocratic government was

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
intended, and that such a focus indicates the inherent principle of con-
stitutionalism in the Islamic state and its implementation of the Islamic
law.190 Overall, al-Awwa not only commends the Iranian constitutional
effort as a distinguished precedent for Arab and Islamic statesmanship,
he also suggests that Iranians should be celebrated for having reconsid-
ered their legal, constitutional, and statecraft systems in order to effec-
tively implement Islamic law.191
  However, it is worth making three observations. Firstly, while the
concept of the Islamic nation-state may present itself in the Iranian
model of a republic, it may not necessarily encompass or create a paral-
lel that would fit with the collective worldview of the Sunni Caliphate
and its transnational institutions, for an Islamic republic is not ‘an’ or
‘the’ Islamic state. Secondly, the development of the Shi’ite policy-
making notion of velayat-e-faqih through the idea of sovereignty is
derived from Twelver Shi’ite jurisprudence of the legitimacy of the
imam himself. Finally, it is argued by some Sunni scholars that the
Iranian experience, as the only successful Islamic modern constitutional
experiment thus far, is mainly due to the inherent ethnically Persian
national make-up of Iran, which is in part unique, and the possibility of
emulating this model has been subsequently questioned, as Shi’ite gov-
ernments with Arab ethnicity have not replicated this experience.

— Iran Today: Influences of the Islamic Nation-State

Weberian, Marxist, and political revivalist notions among others have
shaped Islamic political thought within Shi’ism, which was used both
as a precedent and as a basis for the formulation of the nation-state in
the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This argument is
strengthened by direct parallels between the Iranian experience and
other post-revolutionary republics.
  This section has analysed the dual legitimacy of the Iranian constitu-
tion and the implications this has on the nature of Iranian statehood. We
concluded that despite the special status of Shi’ism within the constitu-
tion, political legitimacy nonetheless dominates its religious counter-
part for several reasons, the chief of which is geopolitics.
  Although there is a presumed clash between Islam and nationalism,
Iranian state-sanctioned nationalism became intertwined if not inter-

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 THE HIJAZ
changeable with Shi’ite sympathy as Iran actively pursued a policy of
leadership of the global Shi’ite community. To conclude, Iran has been at
the forefront of reconciliation between Islam and modern Islamic gov-
ernment by paving the way for its own constitutional political system,
including a nation-state. As a result, this has profoundly shaped the theol-
ogy of Shi’ism, Iran’s state religion, as well as Iranian nationalism and
statehood.Whether or not it has fulfilled the role of an Islamic state—an
inclusive community, worldwide jurisdiction, transnational umma under
God, His Law and His Shadow—is yet to be determined.

Neo-Medievalism:Terror and the Forceful State

— The Path from Extraterritorial Postmodernism
Neo-medievalist ideology, based on DA’ISH’s self-proclaimed Islamic
religious discourse, appears to be, in a way, an extreme extension of the
Salafi movement. The Salafi trend is too wide, however, and any classifi-
cation attempts may be seen as crude generalizations.192 Clearly, DA’ISH
belongs to the salafiyya jihadiyya stream, which often shares the intel-
lectual vision of al-Qaida. The group’s leadership explicitly identifies
with this worldview, with the leadership appealing ‘to all Sunnis, and to
the young men of Jihadi-Salafism (al-Salafiyya al-Jihadiyya) in particular,
across the entire world’.193 In many ways, DA’ISH acts as the stream’s
operational rebirth, based on the necessity of al-mufasala al-jihadi; or in
other words, the adoption of jihad as a ‘separator’ or ‘differentiator’,
with jihad being the instrument for the distinction between themselves
and all the ‘others’—including ‘Muslim world regimes’ and their
‘Western allies’ or ‘collaborators’. DA’ISH and other salafiyya jihadiyya
movements and entities take this separation process (al-mufasala) as a
method or lever towards the establishment of ‘the Universal Caliphate’.
This absolutism facilitates recruiting, draws clear divisive lines, and in
effect demands absolute loyalty in an al-wala’ wa al-bara’ ‘you are either
with us or against us’ fashion whereby all those against the group, its
worldview, and goals will be ‘cleansed’ through force. This explains, to
a considerable extent, the abhorrent killings, the horrific violence, and
the brutality of this neo-medieval terrorist entity. Although the imple-
mentation of Shari’a and the adoption of Salafi ideology is the most

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
common theme between both DA’ISH and al-Qaida, DA’ISH is distin-
guished in terms of being statist and sectarian, with its militancy fuelled
by anti-Sunni discrimination in Iraq.194
  Furthermore, a key distinction is the ‘territorial’ dimension. DA’ISH
did not opt for a global agenda via high-profile terror attacks like al-
Qaida.195 The terrorist group tied its influence to territory, natural
resources196 and arms,197 continually renewed and often well-financed
armies, and a brutal and pragmatic bid for statehood via force and
terror. This is not entirely unprecedented. It was unthinkable in the
twenty-first century perhaps, but in the early twentieth century and
before, it was not uncommon. Arguably, one can attempt to trace his-
torical parallels in the course of Arab and global history. In the vacuum
of weak central governments in Iraq and Syria, DA’ISH sought to capi-
talize on this unique window of opportunity for the expansion of nega-
tive space through force and militant puritanism. It attempted to do so
by seizing the opportunity presented by the withdrawal of the US
troops from Iraq and the change in US policy towards the region,
advancing an unprecedented land grab. DA’ISH acquired territories as
large as the size of the United Kingdom in a short time span (2012–
14).198 This rapid growth of the most violent expression of the ‘Islamic
Faith Militant’ of the 2010s has been linked or likened by numerous
experts to some of the most fierce historical parallels: the militant
Ikhwan groups, the militant Wahhabis of the first Saudi state, and, over-
all, to the most absolutist, puritanical, and dogmatic Wahhabis who are
to some extent seen as having ‘paved the way’ for the horrors of ISIS
and jihadi extremism.199 Perhaps another parallel can be drawn with
respect to the expansion of negative space in power vacuums: the rise
of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The primarily Pashtun move-
ment and armed group seized the moment of opportunity created by
the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the region and the declining
Great Power interest in the early 1990s to expand its influence and
recruitment, establish control over wealth-generating resources (e.g.
opium fields)200 and enforce its austere version of Shari’a law. The sec-
tarian Salafists believe that the Sunni nation is not on the right path of
Islamic governance, and that therefore jihad and resistance against
Sunni national leaders and schools of thought, whether they are Arab
or non-Arab, is required.201 This absolutist view is traced by several

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 THE HIJAZ
analysts to the influence of ‘Zarqawism’. This intense hatred of the
‘other’, which is addressed through the establishment and cultivation
of a ‘fighting society’, fuelled by a combination of puritanical ideo-
religious drivers and a collective desire to exact revenge against all
those with false privileges, ‘guilty associations’ and/or alliances with
infidels, and so forth.202
  While al-Qaida was a transnational non-state actor that carried out
attacks against non-Muslims in many countries, DA’ISH has been far
more organized and increasingly masterful in the function of ‘govern-
ing’.203 DA’ISH progressively underwent a transformation from a non-
state actor to a geographical entity with administrative structures. It
started resembling a state by occupying territory and exercising political
authority over its population, and, mostly importantly, providing ser-
vices ranging from education to commercial transactions to meet civil-
ian needs. Another distinguishing characteristic of neo-medievalism is
that its potential pool of fighters is, effectively, global; many of those
radical jihadists who have participated in battles in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
Chechnya—to cite only a few—are of varying nationalities, and con-
tinue to flock to its ranks.204 According to Wood, the most powerful
catalyst for DA’ISH’s global recruitment was seeing the group’s leader
and head of the DA’ISH-controlled territories preach as the new ‘caliph’
in 2014.205 This perhaps helps to provide a perspective on how danger-
ous it is to allow the usurping of pivotal historical–religious ‘symbols’
by radicals and extremists. This in itself reinforces those arguments in
favour of bestowing special status and protection for powerful Islamic
symbols and common heritage—such as The Hijaz. Apart from greater
security, this would help erect a powerful, united Islamic barrier or
front against extremism and minimize opportunities for the expansion
of negative space in all realms—territorial and ideational. It would have
a powerful de-legitimizing effect on all those seeking to twist and usurp
sacred Islamic teachings and symbols.

— On Neo-Medievalism’s Surprising Growth and Appeal

There are varying suggestions as to why the group grew so rapidly and
dynamically. Many are discussed above: they relate to ideology; capital-
ization on collective negative emotions; financial and tangible personal
motives; the physical or territorial dimension of DA’ISH, with its

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
seemingly pragmatic bid for ‘statehood’ and the establishment of a
Caliphate; the failure of central governments; a power vacuum—both
in the realm of hard power and in the ideational sphere. This goes back
to the negative space argument raised in this thesis: the forceful capac-
ity of intolerant, absolutist, exclusive, and divisive doctrines to occupy
space rapidly and catalyse violence effectively and unrestrictedly until
checked. See, for instance, the horrors of the Taif massacre in the
1920s, which we discussed earlier. What is further clear is that political
and social factors in the region have also contributed to the establish-
ment and increased mobilization of DA’ISH. These factors include the
 

low quality of education in the Arab world that glorifies and sometimes
sanctifies authoritarian leaders; the high levels of poverty and corrup-
tion; and the use of marginalization and oppressive policies by Arab
regimes to crush reform movements.206 One can further add the lack
of inclusion, and of opportunities for a rapidly growing (predominantly
male) youth, as well as social inequality; others highlight the lack of
representation and authoritarianism.207 It is probably a combination of
all the above-mentioned, exacerbated by the misinterpretations of core
religious values and the lack of true resolve when it comes to ‘wres-
tling Islam from the extremists’—whomever these may be.208 Esposito
is extremely critical and absolute in his assessment that ‘the policies of
authoritarian Muslim regimes proved to be catalysts for radicalization,
violence and terrorism not only nationally but also transnationally.’209
  In a way, the following excerpts from Khouri aptly summarize some
of the core points we have raised in this section so far, including:
DA’ISH’s territorial, brutally pragmatic, and tangible dimension
(which is not without historical analogies); the non-linear yet worrying
‘trail’ of militant jihadi thinking which may be traced back to earlier
expressions of the Faith Militant and the impact of extremist clerical–
religious (mis-)interpretations of Islamic texts and readings; the mani-
fold power vacuums and the shortcomings of foreign interventions; the
lack of good, representative, and inclusive governance—with the asso-
ciated issues of legitimacy; and the problems associated with the chal-
lenging quest for inclusive statehood in the broader Middle East:
I use the term ‘ISIS’ rather than the ‘Islamic State’ because ISIS more
accurately captures its crucial Iraqi, Syrian, and Islamic lineage. I also
do not feel it is appropriate to call it the ‘Islamic State’ because I do not

325
 THE HIJAZ
believe it enjoys the legitimacy among all the people it rules for it to be
a credible state. In this lack of legitimacy, ironically, ISIS captures the
main theme of my comments: ISIS, in all its dangerous dimensions, is
the logical but terrifying consequence of the modern legacy of troubled
and often violent Arab statehood. … [People] seeking solace in a vio-
lent movement like ISIS is a reflection of three critical issues: the depth
of their desperation for life in a reconfigured state or society; the inten-
sity and longevity of the factors in their lives that demeaned them for
decades, bringing them to this point; and the complex combination of
societal factors—economics, politics, religion, culture, history, foreign
affairs, basic needs, among others—that merge to make ISIS an attrac-
tive proposition.210
  Of course, as developed extensively in earlier sections, there are a
series of external factors to consider too, including: (a) the shortcom-
ings of external intervention—such as military operations and bases by
Great Powers in the region; (b) foreign interests—meaning efforts to
penetrate the region economically or politically by international actors
which are seen as neo-colonial by some; (c) a rejection of ‘imported’
or ‘imposed’ norms and models of social, economic, and political life
(export of Western values, democracy and so forth); and (d) a sense of
violation that many Muslims feel at the atrocities and killing of brother
and sister Muslims in the region, which helps to generate sympathy for
several local–regional militant groups and can work as an additional
radicalizing factor.

— The Wahhabi Gospel and al-Salafiyya al-Jihadiyya

According to al-Wayyil, DA’ISH should be framed in relation to the
transformation phases of al-salafiyya al-jihadiyya. These phases are as
follows: the first one started in the 1960s with jihadist groups estab-
lished to fight against ‘the near enemy’—certain regimes in the Arab
Muslim world—in order to replace them with Islamic regimes.211 The
second phase is classified as the fight or jihad against ‘the far enemy’:
the West. This phase began during the jihad in Afghanistan and, by
extension, the establishment of al-Qaida as a way to compel the
Western powers to stop interfering in the affairs of Muslims.212
Esposito provides additional context and insight with respect to this
second phase or transformation. The essence of his argument is that the
prolonged Soviet war in Afghanistan had a major unintended conse-

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
quence: the unprecedented globalization of jihad. The following pas-
sage is particularly telling:
The 1979–1989 Soviet–Afghan war marked a turning point; jihad went
global to a degree never seen in the past. The war was waged during the
Cold War at the very time that Western and many Muslim nations
feared not only Communism but also Ayatollah Khomeini and Iran’s
export of its Islamic revolution. An unforeseen consequence and out-
growth of the Afghan war was the development of a global jihad ideol-
ogy and movement(s) that came to see Afghanistan as but one step in a
global war against what were seen as un-Islamic Muslim governments
and the West.213
  Lastly, the third phase was underpinned by a stated aim or ambition
to ‘liberate’ Iraq from the foreign occupiers (primarily US troops) in
order to establish a Sunni state in Iraq. This was initially spearheaded
by the split within al-Qaida, which led to the rise of al-Qaida in Iraq
(AQI), under the leadership of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This took place
in the period between early 2002 and the summer of 2006, with AQI
formally emerging in 2004. The pre-eminent catalyst for AQI’s rise, the
dynamics of its ideology, and the success of its recruiting was foreign
occupation. As Kirdar observes: ‘The U.S.-led invasion and subsequent
occupation [of Iraq] provided the raison d’être for AQI, fuelled the
influx of foreign fighters, enabled a lawless environment for profitable
criminal activities, and facilitated the execution of its strategic goals.’214
Notably, a key component of AQI’s strategy for the maximum instiga-
tion of fear, and for the enhancement of its appeal to foreign fighters
for recruiting, was information and communication technology
(ICT)—‘showing the way’, to some extent, for the adoption of such
tactics by DA’ISH in the early 2010s. Kirdar expanded on this use of or
capitalization on ICT by Zarqawi and AQI:
Two media campaigns raised Zarqawi’s profile, allowing his group to
attract more recruits, gather more resources, and play a more central
role within the insurgency. First, the alleged U.S. military psychologi-
 

cal operations during the occupation raised Zarqawi’s profile to a level

of prominence he was unlikely to have achieved on his own. Second,
AQI’s strategy of disseminating videos of murders and attacks through
the Internet further raised Zarqawi’s—and by extension, the
group’s—profile.215

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 THE HIJAZ
  During this phase, following the loss of AQI’s leader to a drone
strike, and declining support by local power centres, tribal groups, and
other national actors, an internal conflict within al-Qaida led to the
split which produced the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). ISI’s Iraqi jihadists
further expanded the scope and ambitions of their operations, and
began advancing their own agenda—defeating the US-led occupiers,
al-mufasala (separation from other Shi’ite and Sunni groups who
refused to be followers of DA’ISH), and the establishment of a militant
Salafi state.216, 217
  DA’ISH’s religious discourse reveals some important aspects of its
core ideology that are mostly derived from traditional Wahhabi argu-
ments. For instance, DA’ISH’s political takfir, similar to that of early
Wahhabism, is mainly targeted at Muslims who refuse to adhere to its
ideology, or rather, what has been designated by DA’ISH as ‘true
belief’.218 Paradoxically, DA’ISH may use and approve religious teach-
ings or books of certain individuals, but at the same time categorize
these individuals as infidels in the political sense so that they might be
killed or oppressed.
  While many tried to link the jihadi ideology of DA’ISH to the Muslim
Brotherhood’s political ideology—and, specifically, Sayyid Qutb’s ideol-
ogy—others have pointed out that DA’ISH’s ideology is mostly driven
by a specific type of jihadist Salafism that has nothing to do with main-
stream Salafism.219 The Saudi Salafi shaykh Hatim al-Awni220 suggests
that those who deny the relation between the increased use of takfir and
the compiled Wahhabi literature, discussed earlier, in al-Durar al-Saniyya
fi al-Ajwiba al-Najdiyya, are ‘committing a betrayal of the nation and the
homeland’. He argues that the denial and defence of the many mistakes
in al-Durar al-Saniyya is the reason behind the existence of extreme
notions, not to mention continued publications, academic activities, and
graduate research qualifications being approved under the re-production
and promotion of these ideas in Saudi Arabia. He argues that this is
dragging the younger generation into adopting the ideology and sliding
into radicalism and extremism.221
  Interestingly, al-Awni considered those who are silent or who defend
al-Durar al-Saniyya to fall under three types: (1) the ignorant, who do
not really understand what al-Durar al-Saniyya contains; (2) hypocrites,
who are waiting for the chance to join DA’ISH; and (3) beneficiaries,

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
who by refusing to recognize clear mistakes aim to preserve religious
leadership at the expense of the umma, whose interests are threatened
by bloodshed and political chaos. According to al-Awni these extreme
ideas derived from al-Durar al-Saniyya still appear in much scholarly
output without any refutation, condemnation, or even explanation of
its clear contradiction of the true religion and the true Salafi school.
He observes that, most dangerously, these intellectual and scientific
papers assert that adoption of positive legislation is an act of kufr that
excludes the legislators and their society from Islam.222
  The argument highlighted by al-Awni reveals the ongoing debate
within the Saudi Arabian religious sphere, and the alarming challenges
to a comprehensive corrective process and efforts to delegitimize the
religious arguments of DA’ISH and other groups who depend heavily
on the writings of the Salafism of al-Durar al-Saniyya. Al-Awni, in his
speeches and writing, distinguishes between mainstream Salafi think-
ing, which he identifies as belonging to the first generation of Islam,
and al-Durar al-Saniyya, which belongs to Salafi Wahhabi thought.
  In a syndicated television interview,223 al-Awni explained that radi-
calism and extremism are not exclusively Islamic products. Islamic
history has seen some groups categorized by all Muslims as ‘extreme’.
The Khawarij and their history are a notable example. He further
explained that there is an abundance of evidence clearly linking Islamic
extremism to al-Durar al-Saniyya. For instance, he pointed to Ibn ‘Abd
al-Wahhab’s literature, and particularly his view on nawaqid al-islam
al-‘ashra (the ten nullifiers of Islam, seen on DA’ISH’s automobiles) and
al-da‘wa al-najdiyya (the Najidi missionary call). He raised several criti-
cal questions with respect to the so-called defenders of al-Durar al-
Saniyya. In particular, he critically assessed their jurisprudential views
regarding: (a) the issues of hakimiyya; (b) the adoption of positive leg-
islation; (c) al-wala’ wa al-bara’ and supporting others (non-Muslims);
(d) the non-recognition of ignorance as an excuse; (e) their definition
of worship, which can be used as a basis for takfir on other Muslims
even though they bear witness that there is ‘no God but Allah and
Mohammad is His Messenger’; and, likewise, (f) their understanding
of the concept of kufr and the legal status of one who may have doubts
or disagree with them regarding takfir and its scope. The rationale
behind al-Awni posing these questions is that neo-medievalism is

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 THE HIJAZ
increasingly using these concepts in its strategic communications and
rhetoric, and it is therefore difficult to see how the connection between
these issues and the same extreme ideas in al-Durar al-Saniyya can be
denied. According to al-Awni, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab’s thinking contained
some positive aspects as well as others that are utterly wrong—he
notes that the issue of takfir was wrongly established in his thinking.
Consequently, expansion of the brutality of takfir included Muslim
scholars, Sufi imams, and, most importantly, the generalization that
allowed takfir to embrace the entire populations of certain territories
such as Egypt and The Hijaz.224 What becomes clear through this analy-
sis is the need to decouple certain extremist, exclusivist, absolutist,
intolerant, ill-defined, and misinterpreted dimensions of thought asso-
ciated with the Wahhabi and Salafi trends. These aggressive (and often
violent) puritanical ‘reads’ and teachings seem to be doing more harm
than good, paving the way for their effective use by jihadi militants,
providing the springboard for their ideology, and facilitating their
recruiting and radicalization activities. Such a much-needed decoupling
would enable a rapid expansion of the positive space, both within Islam
and globally.
  Apart from the historical parallels that can be drawn with the vio-
lent manifestations of certain absolutist Ikhwan paramilitary groups
and the DA’ISH-like use of horrific terror and unrestrained violence,
there have been some attempts to link the ideology of the two groups.
While there are some connections, they are neither linear nor ever-
present. Attempts to link these with hakimiyya arguments and Qutb’s
contributions in reviving the concept also have shortcomings, as al-
Awni and others assert,225 because the Salafi Wahhabi understanding
derived from al-Durar al-Saniyya ultimately derails even Qutb’s hakimi-
yya. Moreover, DA’ISH is in an ideological conflict with the Muslim
Brotherhood, as they consider the Brotherhood lax in its Islamic pro-
gramme given its belief in the democratic process, which means align-
ment with secular actors.
  Furthermore, a DA’ISH branch has referred to its Arabian Peninsula
Centre, one of its five self-proclaimed Islamic wilayat in Arabia, as the
‘Islamic State in Najd’,226 a name that has obvious historical significance
as the birthplace of the Salafi movement and the Wahhabi jihadi centre.
This action seems to demonstrate that (1) neo-medievalism will con-

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
tinue to challenge existing nation-state borders; (2) it clearly aims to
reinforce its connections to Wahhabism; and (3) it is using historically
significant Najd territories to anchor its religious political mandate.

Islamic Centrism: A New Pan-Islamic Counter-Effort

— Al-Azhar Centrist Islam
In 1926 prominent Islamic scholars gathered at the renowned al-Azhar
in Cairo for the Islamic Caliphate Congress. The main subject of discus-
sion was the decision of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, in March
1924, to abolish the Caliphate. In 2014, almost a century later, a
reported 600 Islamic and Christian theologians from 120 countries
gathered at al-Azhar for the International Conference on Confronting
Extremism and Terrorism. This time, the main subjects of discussion
were extremist ideologies and the actions of Islamic militant groups
such as DA’ISH, and its declaration of an Islamic ‘ Caliphate’.
  In his opening speech at the conference the Grand Imam, Shaykh
Ahmad al-Tayyib, expressed deep concern regarding the situation in the
Middle East, stating that it is ‘extremely sad, one cannot find any single
logical reason that might justify this deliberate destruction of proper-
ties, and killing of people’.227
  While acknowledging that the reasons behind the emergence of
such militant groups are complex, the Grand Imam highlighted that
‘the use of religion in such criminal actions make[s] it more compli-
cated. The attempt to associate the titles that have Islamic connotation
such as “The Islamic State” or “The Caliphate” is mismanaged in this
regard, as this will help in portraying false images about Islam with [a]
violent message. Consequently, this may be exploited by the enemies
of Islam in justifying their false bloodthirsty arguments against Islam.’228
  The Grand Imam suggested that political, economic, cultural, reli-
gious, and social factors might have influenced the emergence of
groups such as DA’ISH. Interestingly, however, he also added that there
 

is an additional factor worthy of consideration. He stated:

That factor relates to the perspective that relates all the sufferings in the
Middle East to a conspiracy in favour of Israel and its survival as the
richest and most powerful state in the region. We do not rule out this

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 THE HIJAZ
perspective. The State of Iraq was invaded in 2003 under false pretexts.
The justifications and lies of that invasion were exposed by the interna-
tional press, and admitted by major global political regimes. The first
thing invaders did in Iraq was the demobilization of the Iraqi army,
which was one of the most powerful Arab armies at the time. Officers
were disbanded, and soldiers then left their weapons for the interest of
conflicting militias; the invaders knew very well that such militias were
at conflict in doctrine, dogma and loyalty. What was the result after
eleven years of the invasion of Iraq? Iraq has entered into a spiral of
fighting, remained floating in oceans of blood that have no shores until
today. The same thing draws on Syria,Yemen and Libya. The conspiracy
plays the same tune over sectarian and ethnic tensions. At the same
time, they feed militants with arms supply in order to break out more
fires, letting death reap thousands of the Ummah’s youthful lives. In all
of these afflicted countries, only God knows when this war machine
will finally fall into silence or when these countries will be guided by
their own lights, and only God knows when these countries will be able
to take their own decisions without foreign pressures or regional and
international interventions.
We are quite certain that those who perpetrated such plots are now
reaping great benefits from the inter-fighting of Muslims, for this fight-
ing will keep the Arabs and the Muslims in a state of depletion and
despair that knows no respite; they can never now muster any strength,
achieve any development or make any progress. It is a war by proxy, in
which the real fomenters of the fighting will lose nothing of value,
whether in lives or in resources. Moreover, the inter-Arab fighting
opens big markets for the arms industry and for the dealers in war,
death and destruction. It is enough proof—over the years—that the
Syrian threats has now become an open field of war, where the western
and eastern arms industry may vie and compete.
How much I wish—and wishing is the resort of the helpless—that the
arms industry will find some remote desert or wasteland, to try its
weaponry and to test its strength, away from the chests of Arabs, their
habitats and their built environment.
The conspiracy theory—gentlemen—is not everything. For there is yet
another deeper reason, one that goes back to our own Arab Islamic
history and it is now almost a constant of our internal dealings. This
reason has almost become a constant method that governs our internal
and external relationships. This factor relates to the dispute division and
differentiation approach.229

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
  The Grand Imam’s speech also touched on the need to address the
issue of the youth who have embraced extremist interpretations of
Islam such as those propagated by al-Qaida and other armed move-
ments, including the more recent DA’ISH, who have called themselves
an ‘Islamic Caliphate’. The actions of these armed movements have had
the effect of ‘destabilizing the region’ and ‘have brought the worst con-
sequences on Islam and Muslims in the whole world’.230
  Delegates at al-Azhar pointed out the increase in modern sectarian
conflicts, noting that DA’ISH is not the only armed faction on the
scene, and that other sectarian militias are slaughtering and displacing
people in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Likewise, al-Azhar expressed its con-
cern about sectarian groups that attempt to drag nations into foreign
regional issues in the name of democracy and human rights, as is the
case in Bahrain.
  Al-Azhar asserted that what is common to these extreme groups is
the tendency to excommunicate and kill Muslims for reasons related
to sinning. This tendency brings to mind the historical doctrines that
permitted the killing of Muslims after labelling them infidels. These
were based on erroneous and deviant understandings of faith. The new
extremists are using the same beliefs.
  The final statement from the conference noted:
It was necessary for Al-Azhar, given its religious significance to all
Muslims, to take the initiative to speak out loudly in the name of Islam
against extremism and terrorism of all forms and to point out the con-
cepts and rhetoric that extremists have manipulated to justify their
terrorist acts.231
  Al-Azhar’s comments on the revisited concepts of takfir, kufr, jihad,
and the Caliphate are discussed below.

— Moderate Interpretations of Takfir

The new extremists groups have misinterpreted the concept of Takfir
‘Blasphemy’ and Iman ‘faith’ and moved both away from its correct
meaning as set by the Prophet (MPUH). Muslims have long recognized
the fact that no one can be accused of Kufr even when they commit a
capital sin unless they make this sin as permissible. Blasphemy has always
been recognized as denial by the heart regarding the belief of God, His

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 THE HIJAZ
angels, His Scriptures, His Messengers and the Last Day, as well as the
destiny, good and bad, being controlled by God. Thus, whoever believes
in God and all that must be a believer who has nothing to do with
blasphemy.232
  There is a danger surrounding the concept of takfir.233 This danger
lies in the different interpretations of the relationship between two
elements: iman (faith in God) and a person’s actions or deeds.
Depending on which school of thought is adopted, the two elements
of takfir may be considered jointly or separately, with one being a fun-
damental issue—faith—and the other secondary—deeds.
  The Sunni school of thought agrees that faith means belief in God,
and his messengers, and so on, while actions or deeds include prayers,
zakat (the alms tax), fasting, pilgrimage, and a commitment to other
duties and prohibitions. These actions or deeds, although crucial to
increasing or decreasing faith, are not part of its deepest component.
It therefore follows that the disappearance of deeds does not necessi-
tate the disappearance of faith. Thus, a believer should still be consid-
ered as such even if he/she does not fully comply with religious obliga-
tions. Such persons should not be deemed infidels.
  The Sunni position becomes a crucial point of distinction when
compared to other Islamic schools of thought, which consider actions
and deeds as part of faith. Given this nexus, they would conclude that
a person who commits a capital sin becomes, because of that sin, a
non-believer or infidel, and therefore out of Islam.
  According to the Mu’tazila school of thought, those who commit
capital sins are neither believers nor infidels, but rather something in
between, which they refer to as fasiq (grave sinners).
  For extremist groups, faith is amalgamated with deeds and actions,
and therefore belief itself is not enough to be recognized as Muslim.
Most important is the claim that this understanding of the concept of
faith is recognized by extremists as the ultimate truth. For example, they
accused the Ash’ariyya school of being not on the right path of Islam.
  The Sunni jurisprudential tendency is to narrow the scope of takfir
so that it only applies to those who explicitly deny a pillar of Islam, or
deny what is already known to be necessarily part of Islam. The prin-
ciple is that nothing shall justify taking a person out of Islam except a
denial of the very thing that makes a person join the faith. Several

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
Qur’anic verses support the notion of separation between faith and
deeds. Abu Hassan al-Ash’ari noted that ‘indeed, after the death of the
Prophet Muslims disagreed on many issues, but always there is one
thing that gathered them all; it is Islam’.234
  Moreover, the Ash’ariyya school of thought believes that takfir is a
matter that no one has the authority to use against another except
through the judiciary and authorized rulers who can identify it, con-
sider its conditions, and adhere to the correct procedures. Therefore,
no single organization or group can claim this authority.
  Muhammad ‘Abduh235 made it clear that keeping away from takfir is
considered to be among the fundamental principles of Islam, stating:
If either a verbal or physical act done by any Muslim can be construed
from 100 points of view and aspects as an act of kufr, while construed
from just one point of view/aspect as an act of belief, then this act is to
be deemed and construed as an act of belief and the Muslim to be
deemed as a believer.236
  Al-Azhar offers a course of instruction in all schools of thought. This
is meant to benefit the umma by opposing extremism and takfir, and at
the same time countering the (Western) attempts to undermine
Islamic ethics, morals, and established traditions. Setting out the official
position of al-Azhar, the Grand Imam conclusively states that the unity
of the umma is one of the major objectives of Shari’a.

— Modern Views on the Concept of Jihad

The Grand Imam made the following observations:
The concept of jihad has further been distorted by these extremist and
sectarian armed groups. They would kill anyone they wish, by pretend-
ing they were doing jihad, while claiming that whoever is killed from
their own ranks is in Paradise. This is indeed a most repugnant under-
standing of Shari’.
First: jihad is legitimate in Islam only if it is waged in self-defence, in
the defence of one’s religion or in the defence of one’s country. We have
learnt from our Sheikhs in Al-Azhar, that the legitimate cause for fight-
ing is aggression, not disbelief.
Second: the declaration of jihad can only be made by the ruler. No
individual person can declare that on his own, no matter what the con-

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 THE HIJAZ
ditions were. The declaration of such war today by individuals, based
on mistaken erroneous understanding of legal rulings, has resulted in
turbulent chaos and bloodshed in the community.237
  The Grand Imam highlighted that Islam strictly prohibits any assault
on a human life irrespective of religion or belief. He quoted the
Qur’an:
Because of this did we ordain unto the children of Israel that if anyone
slays a human being—unless it be [in punishment] for murder or for
spreading corruption on earth—it shall be as though he had slain all
mankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had
saved the lives of all mankind.238
  God’s reference is clearly to all mankind and not just Muslims,
therefore explicitly expressing openness to others. The Grand Imam
further noted, with great significance, that
Islam in fact opened up to followers of other religions, to the extent of
allowing marriage and living together in one house, and under one
roof. This represents an acknowledgment of Islam of co-existence, and
inter-family relationships. We acknowledge the principle of full citizen-
ship and living in a common homeland. Hence, aggression, forced
displacement, and discrimination are incompatible with the true reli-
gion, and the consensus of the Muslims.239

— (Re-)Centring the Future of Islam: The Two Holy Mosques

In the previous two sections we have highlighted the ideological space for
openness and tolerance, and therefore the possibility also to reject on
ideo-religious grounds the advent of negative space and the different
expressions of radicalism, extremism, and the Faith Militant movements.
We move to a discussion of positive space and its tremendous potential
to reshape advantageously the region’s ideo-political framework, pro-
moting greater harmony, tolerance, cross-sectarian dialogue, and, ulti-
mately the protection of Islam and its core values against aspiring militant
usurpers who try to exploit the power of faith and religion for the maxi-
mization of their own power, influence, and skewed worldviews.
  It is in the hands of the Islamic states and their governments—and
especially, for many reasons, both symbolic and political, including of
course the custodianship of The Hijaz and Islam’s Holy Sites, Saudi

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 IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD
Arabia—to undertake bold and far-reaching centrist institutional
reforms to prevent the usurpation of Islamic values, symbols, and
teachings by jihadists and extremists. It requires first intra-Islamic, and
then global, dialogue and understanding. And, naturally, Makkah and
Medina must be at the very centre, if not at the forefront, of this insti-
tutionalization, preparing for the new era. Makkah, home to the Hajj
and the spiritual home of Muslims globally, has exclusive, compelling
symbolic power within the Muslim world. The Hijaz has also a distinct
historical significance, as the ‘true Islamic state’, the home of the
Prophet and the heart of the Rashidun Caliphate (and Empire)—this
very important era of Islamic progress and early form of democracy.
Beyond the sphere of symbolism and its immense soft power within
Islam, but also globally, The Hijaz also has a crucial positive track
record, a proven ability to fulfil the role of Islam’s ideo-religious con-
flict-prevention centre. It would help check governance, sectarianism,
ideo-religious antagonisms, and could facilitate harmony and peaceful
coexistence between different doctrinal understandings, worldviews,
and interpretations. It is the pre-eminent environment for the promo-
tion of the umma’s Islamic cohesion and solidarity. The Grand Mosque,
historically, in its ‘golden periods’, constituted the leading forum to
debate, soothe, and resolve jurisprudential and sectarian issues. It was
a source of guidance, for all Muslims, in the path towards greater
understanding, dialogue, peace, and common prosperity. In many ways
The Hijaz was the embodiment of positive space. With the agency of
Saudi Arabia, and in lieu of Wahhabi ideology, the Institution of the Two
Holy Mosques—not just al-Azhar, Najaf, Qum, or Jabal ‘Amil among
others—can once again fulfil these governance roles, encouraging cen-
trism, human progress, cooperation, and working towards de-radical-
ization and the eradication of fanaticism and extremism.

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 9

THE RELUCTANT HIJAZ

A MOMENT FOR PAUSE, REFLECTION,
AND LEGITIMATE POLICY RESET

In this chapter, we sketch out some reflections on a framework of

legitimate policy for an inclusive regional initiative, which could help
tackle some of the pressing challenges through a positive integrative
vision for Islamic governance to address the current complex global
crises of Islam. Because of its deep philosophical and jurisprudential
heritage, one mustn’t ignore the sacred—even if inconvenient—space
of theory in Islam. A series of theoretical, multi-layered, variable–geo-
metric governance steps must be taken to assist states of the greater
Middle East escape their defeatist past and angry present, and to over-
come their crises in a constructive and harmonious way on the path to
inclusive reflection, a fresh start, and sustainable progress. The Hijaz,
under Saudi Arabia’s stewardship, can provide the ideo-religious back-
bone of such a positive ‘restart’ space. The heart of Islam, the Muslim
Holy Lands, can provide the institutional integrative fountainhead that
could guide Islamic nation-states in overcoming ideo-religious obsta-
cles to the much-needed cooperation and governance that will usher in
a prosperous era for the region.
  Such multi-level efforts will make it possible for Arab and Muslim
states to jointly claim Islam’s rightful seat at the high table in interna-

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 THE HIJAZ
tional organizations—starting with the UN, next to that of the Vatican.
This will allow for a safer navigation of the uncharted and seemingly
challenging waters of the twenty-first century. A new era for Islam and
the region can be inaugurated with the positive agency of all the states
of the greater Middle East. It is in their vital interest. They need it, and
so does the increasingly dynamic, rapidly changing, and progressively
volatile world.

Positive Space: Integrating the Rebirth of Islamic Governance

The Grand Imam of al-Azhar addressed the issues of succession of the
Caliphate and Imamate. He noted that although there are varying
scholarly opinions on the concept, it is peculiar that Islamic militant
groups have made the Caliphate and Imamate fundamental issues that
separate belief from disbelief, and that has ‘become a reason for blood-
shed and destruction of civilization, and tarnished the image of the true
religion!’1 He explained that:
The issue of succession of the ‘Caliphate’ and ‘Imamate’, were errone-
ously dealt with as a major issue, while scholars of the tenets of faith
hold that succession is not one of the fundamental issues of Islam rather
it belongs to the category of secondary issues.2
  One excerpt from the final statement produced at al-Azhar notes
the following appeal for unity: ‘We call on Arab countries to organize
their cooperation and to develop mechanisms for this cooperation in
order to achieve stability, security and prosperity.’3 In this regard, The
Grand Imam has asserted the importance of al-Azhar as the only body
qualified to introduce Islamic doctrine and Shari’a to all as a reliable
Islamic reference and source of guidance.
  Indeed, throughout history, as explained above, the Islamic state has
played a major role in global politics—between the seventh and thir-
teenth centuries CE helping to shape the balance of power in the
world—as well as in the history of international relations in general.
From a strategic point of view, it has been observed that the Caliphate
occupied a prominent global position during the Umayyad period, the
first Abbasid era, and the beginnings of the Fatimid, Mamluk, and
Ottoman eras. The Caliphate suffered periods of decline during the

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 THE RELUCTANT HIJAZ
second and third Abbasid eras, and in the later stages of the Fatimid,
Mamluk, and Ottoman periods.
  Regardless of its progress and setbacks in certain periods, the
caliphal state was sustained until the end of the First World War. It
faced internal setbacks and external pressures that saw its capital move
from one country to another—from Medina to Damascus, then
Baghdad and Cairo and Istanbul—besides the uncertain role of other
capitals in Spain and Morocco that affected international Islamic rela-
tions. At times it was as if the epicentre of the Caliphate was shifting to
reflect changes in the balance of power in the Islamic world. The emer-
gence of the Ottomans in the beginning of the sixteenth century, dis-
tinguished as a global central power during the time of Sultan Suleiman
Qanuni (the Lawgiver), saw it extend its power for four centuries.
However, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Ottomans
suffered internal weakness besides their conflict with the Safavid state
that had extended its influence over Asian territories at the borders of
the Ottoman Empire.
  The weakness of the Ottoman Empire was exploited by the
European empires that strengthened their power between the seven-
teenth and twentieth centuries—France, Germany, Italy, Britain,
Austria, and Russia (representing the most notable powers on the
international stage at that time). Although the USA was also emerging
as an important player, it did not appear so until the end of the First
World War, and only came to dominate international affairs after the
Second World War. In other words, at the age of multi-polarity, when
the international system was populated by a series of Great Powers
competing for power and influence, the issue of the Caliphate was
affected by shifts in both the regional and global balance of power. All
sorts of seemingly unlikely alliances would emerge to try to alter the
balance of power and advance their own interests. The competition of
the European imperial powers, as we have discussed extensively in
earlier chapters, was also a major source of friction in the Greater
Middle East and intra-Islamic context. So the question of the
Caliphate, the issue of who holds the highest religious authority within
Islam, was greatly affected by the international relations and global
geopolitics of the time. Issues such as the rise or decline of empires,
colonial divide and rule, and the emergence of regional powers and

341
 THE HIJAZ
aspiring regional hegemons greatly affected influential concepts and
powerful symbols—such as that of the Caliphate in the Islamic
context.
  To put it in perspective, the Islamic competition between the
Ottoman Empire and the Safavid state in Persia was taking place in
parallel with competition between two European imperial powers,
France and Spain. The Safavids chose to ally with the European powers
that were opposing France; at the same time, France was sealing an
alliance with the Ottoman state. These alliances negatively affected the
Islamic world in general, as the European states obtained privileges
over many Islamic territories, leading to the establishment of a new
process of colonization over Muslims in general, and Arabs in particu-
lar. The European states took effective steps to dominate Islamic ter-
ritories, firstly with the excuse of wanting to ‘protect’ non-Muslim
minorities in the Middle East—the pretext the European states used
to influence the region. Consequently, Europeans justified colonization
by claiming a ‘civilizing mission’, transferring European civilization to
the Arabs and Muslims after the decline of the Ottoman Empire. In
other words, the colonialists took advantage of the power vacuum that
followed the decline of the Ottoman Empire to strategically penetrate
and carve up a great part of the wider Middle East. They framed this
forcible bid for control and influence over Arabia in a form of ‘neo-
colonial’ language which implied a need for oversight and patronage
during the region’s ‘Westernization’ and path to independent state-
hood. Overall, these external factors kindled the resurgence of the
study of Islamic political thought by scholars and the reconsideration
of possible political alternatives for the Islamic world.
  With the establishment of the League of Nations after the end of the
First World War, the notion of international groupings emerged as it
had historically in Muslim political thought. The notion was developed
philosophically by al-Farabi (872–950), known in the West as
Alpharabius, one of the most celebrated Muslim scholars who was also
influenced by the Greek tradition. In his book Ara’ Ahl al-Madina al-
Fadila (The opinions of the people of the virtuous city), he pointed out
the importance of cooperation and unity as a necessity for developing
and regulating the world. Al-Farabi also theorized a ‘global state’ as he
stressed the human instinct for mutual cooperation. In other words, he

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 THE RELUCTANT HIJAZ
delineated a vision for greater global cooperation, integration, and
harmony, stemming from one of the most basic human needs and val-
ues: the need to cooperate, work together, produce together, and, in
doing so, promote the well-being and security of all. In many ways, it
was as if he was discussing some of the founding principles that guide,
normatively, the present international system, in which decisive
authority and influence lies with the United Nations. Al-Farabi went
further by classifying human communities in three ranks: (1) the ‘great
rank’ or perfection, wherein the whole world gathered under one state
that was subject to one authority; (2) the ‘middle rank’, wherein a
country was subject to one authority; and (3) the ‘small rank’, wherein
the people of a city or village were subject to one authority.
  In this regard, al-Farabi asserted that a virtuous gathering is the one
that is achieved through a ‘virtuous leader’, the imam or caliph. He
further states that:
The city, which is meant to be the gathering of people for cooperation
on things that undermine their happiness, is, in fact, the perfect utopia;
also, a gathering that is for cooperation on the noble happiness is a
virtuous gathering, and a nation whose cities all cooperate on what
impairs their happiness is a virtuous nation. Likewise, the globe
becomes perfect and virtuous if its nations cooperate to achieve happi-
ness. The head of this would be the president of the perfect city (uto-
pia), or the virtuous nation, or the whole globe.4
  Consequently, al-Farabi was able to aspire to and imagine an ‘inter-
national bloc’, which would be established through the cooperation of
all the states in the world. Although al-Farabi did not determine the
legal and Shari’a-compliant bases for the government of these organiza-
tions, he provided major intellectual ideas that indicate the possibility of
establishing them. It is notable that most contemporary Muslim thinkers
did not give the Islamic blocs5 enough attention in their writings, and
the few such writings that actually exist are mainly concerned with mili-
tary cooperation—which can be understood as mutual defence treaties
rather than any real regional or international organization.
  The pan-Islamism that rose from the ashes of the Ottomans called
for the establishment of an international Muslim union; this was cham-
pioned by al-Afghani, and his student ‘Abduh, the rationalist scholar of
Egypt, as well as the Arab nationalist al-Kawakibi in Syria. Although

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 THE HIJAZ
pan-Islamic actors initially aimed to resist colonial occupation of
Muslim territories, they were also keen to promote an internal reform-
ist agenda. Al-Afghani’s view of the international Islamic bloc could be
summarized as: prioritizing religious ties instead of those of descent
and blood6 so that all Muslims (Turkish, Arab, Persian, Indian, Egyptian,
Moroccan) could gather under one banner. He also accepted the
authority of the Ottomans conditional on their adoption of reforma-
tion and introduction of all the means of modern civilization. Notably,
al-Afghani called on the Turks to adopt the Arabic language because of
its value as the language of the Qur’an, asking them to implement it at
all levels of the state, including the arts, science, and literature.
  Interestingly, among his efforts to promote pan-Islam, in the 1890s
al-Afghani attempted to revive the Caliphate through a project of
decentralization of authority and assertion of Muslim solidarity. He put
to Sultan Abdulhamid the idea of establishing a ‘confederation’7 of
semi-autonomous8 Islamic nations wherein ‘Pan-Islam and Nationalism
could be mutually complementary’.9 His idea was intended to
strengthen the Ottoman Empire through decentralization of the
Caliphate by adopting a confederation composed of ten states that
would guarantee stability and enhance reformation within the Ottoman
Empire. In this regard, al-Afghani proposed The Hijaz as one of these
independent states, and suggested that its ruler should be one of the
most capable of the Hashemites (Qurayshi), well known and of good
repute. Consequently, this confederation would attract other Islamic
nations (Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt, and India) that were not under the
full control of the Ottomans to join and achieve Muslim solidarity and
pan-Islamic unity in the face of any foreign aggression.10 In other
words, at the turn of the nineteenth century al-Afghani was proposing
the establishment of a multi-layered ideo-political alliance, one which
would have a strong normative base, provided by Islam; deep ties and
solidarity entrenched in these common religious values; and the overall
characteristics of a powerful intergovernmental (in a way) collective
security organization founded on these principles. The driving force,
beyond Islam, of this integrative vision, was the clear realization that
only through unity, through the pooling of the political, diplomatic,
and military power of these nations, could the external security of each
of the actors participating in this collective system be guaranteed
against the challenging global context.

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 THE RELUCTANT HIJAZ
  On the other hand, ‘Abduh called for the reformation of the
Caliphate, as well as of the Arab Muslim community, imploring them
to leave heresies and divisions behind them. He called for a rejection
of the merger between the religious and political authorities. ‘Abduh’s
view of Islamic union was primarily focused on the solidarity of
Muslims in order to achieve religious reformation. He pointed out that
there could not be political unity without ethics and religious reform.
As such, ethical revival must be the core of any reform, since without
it no reform or unity among Muslims can emerge. He argued that
‘administrative reform does not require a long time if there are sound
ethics; however, if these ethics suffered corruption then the reform is
not easy, but it may take tens of years’.11
  The third of these trans-Islamists was al-Kawakibi. In Tabai‘ al-Istib-
dad (The nature of despotism) he spoke about the phenomenon of
tyranny and how it should be countered. Al-Kawakibi advocated that
the responsibility for the Islamic renaissance was on the shoulders of
the Arabs. He pointed out the territorial significance of the Jazira, the
Arabian Peninsula, as the most appropriate centre for Islamic gover-
nance since it was the starting point and seat of Islam from The Hijaz.
He therefore believed that the Arabs are most qualified to undertake
the leadership of the Muslim world; for instance, they are one of the
oldest nations in terms of social relations and structures, in addition to
their undisputed heritage concerning shura in public affairs. Moreover,
he claimed that Arabs were extremely keen to respect covenants, which
put them in a prestigious position among nations.
  Curiously, al-Kawakibi suggests the establishment of a non-state
Islamic congregation to be convened during the Hajj in Makkah to debate
the future of the Muslim umma;12 through this forum, Muslim unity
could be guaranteed, separate from governmental dependency.13
  In truth, the trans-Islamist movement actively enriched Islamic
revivalism in general by attempting to fill the political and cultural soli-
darity vacuum in the Muslim world. In the same way, it influenced and
shaped many modern reformists who later effectively initiated the
wave of colonial resistance in Arab Muslim territories. One example is
Algeria, for instance, where Shaykh Abdelhamid Ben Badis14 founded
the Association of Algerian Muslim ‘Ulama’, which was a successful
force against the French imperial project in Algeria.

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 THE HIJAZ
  Theirs was a discourse working for both comprehension of and reac-
tion to international political and social changes relating to crises, in
society, religion, and geopolitics. The discourse had previously made
attempts to manage transformations, and to provide alternative solu-
tions for the Islamic world in the new international legal order, even if
they were ultimately more theoretical than practical. The international
system after the First World War, and the new internal challenges to
the Islamic world, as discussed in earlier chapters, played a central role
in shaping the debate on the future of the Caliphate.
  We should also not ignore the rigorous intellectual efforts of Rashid
Rida15 to mobilize and strengthen Muslims’ awareness of the impor-
tance of the institution of the Caliphate, through his seminal 1922
book, al-Khilafa, along with other writings. As we saw earlier, in the
discussion on Islamic self-determination, Rida had called for a strong
Islamic state that could counter European intrusions in the Muslim
world. His writings spoke of the dangers of the imminent collapse of
the Caliphate and the imperial agenda of European states in the region,
and challenged secular attempts to abolish the Caliphate. Curiously, he
initially supported the Young Turks movement, and warned against
accepting a conditional Caliphate in its spiritual form only, arguing that
this gave no authority to the caliph. Consequently, he concluded with
‘the restoration of the imamate through the restoration of the authority
of the umma that is represented in ahl al-hall wa al-‘aqd [those qualified
to elect or depose a caliph on behalf of the Muslim community]; in this
way, an authentic Islamic government can be established’.16 He is
famous for his call to Muslims to uphold and restore the real Caliphate
according to the principles of Islam. He was among the first scholars to
call for the General Islamic Congress for the Caliphate to determine
the future of the Caliphate after the Turkish National Assembly deposed
the sitting Ottoman sultan, Abdulmajid.17 As this book discusses in
detail, several diplomatic conferences were held to discuss the
Caliphate and The Hijaz.
  Rida strongly believed in his programme for the re-establishment of
the Caliphate with its rightful seat in The Hijaz. He argued that just as
Islam originated in The Hijaz, it is from The Hijaz that the future of the
Arab and Islamic world could begin anew. In these calls, he placed much
responsibility on Arabs, ethnically, to unify the whole umma. What is

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 THE RELUCTANT HIJAZ
clearly established in Rida’s work is his commitment to the restoration of
the Qurayshi Caliphate as an integral part of a religious reform project.
However, such a precondition and commitment to the Arab–Qurayshi
bloodline was criticized by many non-Arab Muslim scholars; for instance,
Abul Kalam Azad,18 who ‘rejected ethnicity as the basis for religious
leadership and the drawing of communal boundaries’.19 Paradoxically, at
the time, the Hashemites showed no intention to implement Rida’s pro-
gramme in The Hijaz, forcing him to call for the revival of the Caliphate
in other cities, such as Istanbul or Mosul.20 Discouraged by Muslim lead-
ers and their failures to restore the Caliphate, he revised his programme
‘to protect the moral boundaries of the community of Muslims and the
political independence of the holy cities in the face of the power of
empire—both of which could be achieved, they determined, within the
framework of national liberation’.21
  This new direction raised questions about the authenticity of Rida’s
notion of the ‘essentialism of the Caliphate’. It was clear that his politi-
cal thought tended to highlight political power and ways of ensuring
that it is not unchecked, by vesting it in the hands of the umma. He
spoke of the rule of law, and that the caliph is not above the law, in
which ‘he only executes the Shari’a law and the will of the Umma …
the Umma has the right to depose the imam-caliph, if it finds a reason
for doing so’.22 Conventional wisdom notes Rashid Rida for his pan-
Arab ideas and his proposal for an Arab empire; however, this is merely
a portion of his original thesis, which, idealistically, called for the
revival of the Islamic world and the Caliphate as an Arab mission and a
priority, just as it was in the beginning of Islam. Rida, like the jurist
al-Sunhuri who we discussed earlier, did not die with his ideals; both
died rationalizing the realism of Islamic world they inherited.

— In Lieu of the Essential Caliphate

The debate over the Caliphate as an Islamic system of governance, and
its sources and validity, has taken different forms. Some, such as the
Hizb al-Tahrir movement, still strongly argue for it to be re-established
in its traditional place within religion. Others believe that it is no lon-
ger acceptable to restore the Caliphate in a developing world com-
posed of nation-states with an increased tendency to nationalism. On

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 THE HIJAZ
the other hand, a group of contemporary jurists and scholars have
developed a theoretical and practical framework that is based on the
essence and Islamic objectives of the Caliphate as a system and its con-
temporary applications, including the issue of Islamic unity.
  Radwan al-Sayyid23 has investigated the contemporary concept of
the Islamic state, asserting that it is now used differently from the way
it was widely interpreted among Muslim scholars in the past. The con-
cept used to mean the collective body of Muslims (dar al-islam). In this
territory, all are equally treated, and the Islamic rituals are fully per-
formed. However, the concept of an Islamic state now is a contempo-
rary ideology that was spread widely in the early twentieth century,
and came to mean the representative of the legitimate authority.
  It is worth mentioning that the root of the modern concept comes
from certain ideas based on the fear of colonization and Westernization
which have come to affect Muslim identity.24 Indeed, this ideology
enhanced the tendency towards connecting the legitimacy of a system
of governance and religion. Such an inclination embraces the assertion
that a system of governance is an integral part of religion, and that the
Caliphate is the only legitimate method to guarantee the implementa-
tion of Shari’a. Al-Sayyid argues that such an understanding is very
poor, and unknown in the history of Muslim scholarship; rather, it
leads to separation within communities, and to corruption of the reli-
gion as well. He asserts that the political system of governance in Islam
is determined by the people, and that it is an agreement on the preser-
vation of interests that is not related to worship and belief, just as al-
Juwayni had asserted before him, in the eleventh century.25
Consequently, according to this understanding, an Islamic state is a
state that is based on the agreement of the vast majority of Muslims,
and it derives its legitimacy from this majority, as it is widely known
and recognized in all other systems around the world. Al-Sayyid points
out that there is a need for two main reform programmes; the first is a
religious reform that reconsiders the political system as a management
of public affairs, rather than as part of religion. The second is a political
reform that supports the peaceful transfer of authority and the estab-
lishment of fair and just governance.26 In a way, his proposition delin-
eates important aspects of a potential new model of governance in a
world of multi-layered authority.

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 THE RELUCTANT HIJAZ
  We have therefore traced, in these latter two subsections, the schol-
arly, ideational, and, in a way, ideological foundations for a trans-
Islamic positive integrative vision, which could take the form of a
robust Islamic initiative for the region. At its heart was the legitimizing
core, the key point of origin, and the normative centre of any such
initiative. In a way, the same needs are true today, as they were then.
This time, however, the notion of defence, and the need to attain col-
lective security, is not principally external. The priority should be to
protect Islam from the most radical and violent expressions of the
negative space within it, which, as we demonstrated earlier, fuel,
embolden, and sustain the Faith Militant. In a way, Islamic states, and
Islam itself, need to be safeguarded from extremism and intolerance,
and their militant expressions. A positive return to the deeper Islamic
values, the powerful unifying ideas and symbols, is vital.

— Islamic Statehood in Light of Modern Trends

After the extensive discussion on Islamic statehood of the last century,
is it strategic thinking or indeed legitimate policy (siyasa shar‘iyya) to
look at neo-medievalism as a temporary historical occurrence confined
to a small group of non-state actors, even if similar to and inspired by
the Wahhabi Faith Militant movement of the eighteenth, nineteenth,
and twentieth centuries? Or should our critical reflection instead be
more pragmatic, beyond immediate security concerns, and indeed
inclusive of an understanding of the objectives of Shari’a? To wit,
should we also consider access to abundant sources of wealth and
financing, the asymmetric breadth and reach of its undertakings, and
its access to continually renewed foreign recruits, as well as looking at
its agency and standing through the legitimacy of the eleventh-century
jurisprudential concept of sultat al-istila wa’l-taghalub (authority of
seizure and domination)?
  With its territorial claims, rapid and vast expansion, and, at times,
increased governance outlook, it appeared as if there was for DA’ISH—
as for the Taliban—a possibility of heading towards some form of
regional or international recognition. In other words, at times it
appeared as if there was a chance—or ‘dark prospect’ rather—of
potential partial recognition of DA’ISH, as a form of ‘actor’, a state or

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 THE HIJAZ
quasi-state entity (pariah and/or terrorist perhaps, but state-like none-
theless). Such a prospect would have seemed even more plausible if
DA’ISH had appeared to be dropping or scaling down its violence, and
on a path to rid itself of its militant–expansionist elements. In other
words, some actors in the region might have been perhaps prepared to
‘discuss’ or negotiate with DA’ISH, partially recognize its existence—
as a form of ‘appeasement’—in the process encouraging the terrorists
to halt their advance and any further territorial push.27
  From a legal perspective, we consider recognition in the established
principle under international law which suggests that illegal actions
cannot lead to legal results.28 This principle of international law cor-
responds with a developed principle of Islamic law: that what is con-
structed on a fallacy is deemed false. The argument was invoked by US
Secretary of State Stimson after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.29
Since then, it has been invoked on various occasions by the Security
Council30 and the ICJ.31
  According to Article 41 point 2 of the Articles on State
Responsibility: ‘No State shall recognize as lawful a situation created by
a serious breach within the meaning of article 40, nor render aid or
assistance in maintaining that situation.’32 What is more, the duty is not
only to refrain from recognizing the situation, but also, according to
the Article 41 point 1: ‘States shall cooperate to bring to an end
through lawful means any serious breach within the meaning of article
40.’ One could ponder in a different situation the application of the
norm enshrined in Article 41 point 2,33 and whether the situation
regarding DA’ISH can be qualified as ‘a serious breach of obligations
under peremptory norms of general international law’.34 For the cur-
rent debate, it is worth noting that the rule of non-recognition of ille-
gal situations may, inter alia, refer to the creation of a state under inter-
national law. It is uncontested by the doctrine of international law that
the creation of an entity in breach of jus cogens cannot produce legal
rights to the wrongdoer.35 Some believe that this requirement can be
treated as an additional statehood criterion.36
  The discussion on The Hijaz in the context of international law has
taken on a new dimension because of the challenges posed by neo-
medievalism. Contemporary armed groups and sectarian militias such
as DA’ISH have to some extent usurped Islamic concepts, most dis-

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 THE RELUCTANT HIJAZ
tinctly by claiming to be an ‘Islamic state’ or ‘Caliphate’. Their actions
not only pose a threat to security and peace on the international level,
but also endanger Middle Eastern regional peace, the security of Saudi
Arabia, and, even more directly, pilgrims and the Two Holy Mosques.
Hijazi people, citizens of Makkah and Medina, are especially concerned
with claims to Islamic rights that are historically and inextricably con-
nected with the Holy Places. DA’ISH’s followers and ideologies have
manifested direct effects on the instability and conflicts in Syria and
Iraq and are having a growing influence in Arabia, with some expansion
in Saudi Arabia and Egypt—see for instance, attacks against Medina
and Makkah; and note the activity of the so-called DA’ISH Najd
wilayah.37
  In light of this imminent threat to security and the fundamental
understanding of Islam, and chilling attempts to redraw the map of The
Hijaz—be it by American think tanks or DA’ISH itself—proposals for
increased and internationalized autonomy for The Hijaz38 to actively
defend itself against any external threat alongside the central govern-
ment of Saudi Arabia are finding increased favour.39 Although there is a
legal possibility that autonomy may be perceived as a first step towards
external self-determination, rather than international politicization,
there is also a strong argument to be made for the ability of The Hijaz
to further advance its own safety from interference or threats by more
actively ‘deliberating democratically’ on the fate and protection of the
Holy Lands; especially when some are suggesting international status,
or indeed international administration, for the Holy Cities. Again, this
is not to say that Saudi Arabia cannot defend the Holiest Sites alone.
What can be argued, however, is that an internationalized status for The
Hijaz could help foster a positive momentum and pan-Islamic commit-
ment to protect their common heritage, with all actors clamping down
more forcefully on groups and individuals suspected to be aiding or
fostering, directly or indirectly, DA’ISH fighters (regional and global)
and/or leaders.

— ‘Islamic State’ Exclusivity

President Barack Obama addressed the legal status of DA’ISH, in an
official statement made in September 2014, warning against the use of

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 THE HIJAZ
the term ‘Islamic State’. The sentiments expressed in his statement are
of course to be considered against the political backdrop of the US
president speaking as ‘Leader of the Free World’. The political state-
ment arguably grasps the very core of the problem regarding the pro-
motion of neo-medievalism and why such an entity should not be
called the ‘Islamic State’.40
  The many challenges of defining the concept of the state have been
addressed in Part I of this book. Nevertheless, the co-related features
of the Caliphate can be drawn today from the history and scholarly
theories available in this field—namely, recognition and legitimacy.
These two features are arguably intersecting today. For DA’ISH, nei-
ther of them is present at the moment, given the widely publicized,
and equally widely condemned, violence, killings, and assault of per-
sons and property. Without recognition on an international level—
which conflicts with declaratory theory—such claims to statehood
would inevitably fail. And without legitimacy—by force or consen-
sus—the prospect of recognition is almost non-existent. However, a
widely publicized political—as distinct from legal or jurisprudential—
importance of moral recognition could potentially be threatening.
  Neo-medievalist claims regarding ‘statehood’ are effectively dis-
missed in international law under both declaratory and constitutive
theories of statehood. For supporters of the declaratory theory, the
creation of a state is considered a matter of fact, with states coming
into existence when the minimum criteria—defined territory, perma-
nent population, government, and capacity to enter into relations with
other states—are met. For constitutive theorists, a state only comes
into being when it is recognized as a sovereign entity by other states.
  Given that DA’ISH fails on both international law theories, as well
as under Islamic law, what remains to be considered is practical—
whether, in spite of not being a ‘state’, neo-medievalism has any justi-
fication for continuing to use the title ‘Islamic State’ in reference to
itself. We can resolutely challenge such claims. Instead, what becomes
clear is that neo-medievalism has been trying to usurp the pivotal sym-
bolism of the term to advance its reach and recruiting capacity, as well
as to cloak its perverse doctrinal agenda, which is in fact very remote
from Islam and its core values. And, of course, it has no relation what-
soever to the first true Islamic state and its unique ongoing value as a

352
 THE RELUCTANT HIJAZ
paradigm and source of direction for the Islamic world, societies, and
nations alike.
  On an international level, every state ‘has the right freely to choose
and develop its political, social, economic and cultural systems’.41 But
if one state attempts to influence another’s national symbols or name,
would that not be in breach of established principles protecting sover-
eignty, such as the principle of non-intervention and non-interference
in the domestic affairs of the another state?42 This scenario, however,
assumes the existence of two pre-existing states—one being the influ-
encing and the other the influenced state. It may therefore have limited
applicability to the situation with DA’ISH, given that the group is
clearly not a state. Nevertheless, it is an argument worth pausing over,
and some rationale may perhaps be found in the ongoing dispute
between the Republic of Macedonia and Greece.43
  This dispute is centred on the right to monopolize use of the name
Macedonia, which is commonly used in two contexts.The first is as infor-
mal reference to the state—the Republic of Macedonia, also referred to
as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)—and the sec-
ond, broader context is as a reference to the larger, ancient, historical
region of Macedonia, parts of which are now territorially divided between
different states, including the Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria,
Serbia, and Albania. Greece has consistently opposed the unqualified use
of the term Macedonia in reference to the Republic of Macedonia, argu-
ing that large portions of its own population still identify themselves as
Macedonians from both a cultural and historical perspective.44
  Greece has seen some success in its protests and its political efforts
to claim a monopoly. For instance, the UN agreed to admit the
Republic of Macedonia to its membership under the name Former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia until a solution is found to the dis-
pute.45 Additionally, Greece has been successful in forcing the Republic
of Macedonia to change its national symbol. The parliament of
Macedonia had adopted the yellow sixteen-ray star symbol (the Sun of
Vergina) as the state symbol, until Greece was able to convince the UN
not to display that symbol (on the flag outside the UN Headquarters),
and, in the 1995 Interim Accord between Greece and Macedonia, the
disputed symbol was replaced by an eight-rayed sun.
  Sir Michael Wood’s conclusions on the dispute are as follows:

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 THE HIJAZ
The case of Macedonia has led some to ask whether states have absolute
freedom in the choice of their names. This is not a matter that will arise
often. The difference is somewhat reminiscent of that between Ireland
and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
(Northern Ireland) over their respective names, a matter only resolved
at the time of the Agreement between the Government of Ireland and
the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland of 10 April 1998. Subject to any specific treaty obligation, or
 

one imposed by custom or the UN Security Council, there would seem

to be nothing to limit a State’s choice of name; but equally there is
nothing to stop others declining to use the name it has chosen.46
  Sir Michael Wood suggests that ‘there would seem to be nothing to
limit a State’s choice of name’. While we do not assume that DA’ISH
has at some level a legitimate claim to statehood, we do believe that the
call for an Islamic state or a Caliphate is a powerful, unpredictable, and
continuous challenge to international law. Therefore, it is difficult to
ignore the parallels that can be drawn here with the claim over the
term ‘Islamic State’. The Hijaz, as the central seat of Islam, could assert
historical and cultural rights to both the term and its substance. In the
absence of Hijaz’s authority to do so, the claim would have to be
asserted on an international level by a UN-recognized state, Saudi
Arabia, on its behalf.
  Greece has raised two main issues in the Macedonia dispute: firstly,
the appropriation of Greek heritage; and secondly, the violation of
Greek territorial sovereignty signified by a claim to the territory of the
historical Macedonian region.47 It is difficult for such arguments to be
used by Saudi Arabia on behalf of The Hijaz. Firstly, the use of the term
‘Islamic State’ and the claims by neo-medievalist leaders to be caliphs
are an unauthorized appropriation of The Hijaz’s heritage. Secondly, the
name Islamic State has the implication of conquest and annexation of
The Hijaz’s territory to the putative Islamic state. Given that The Hijaz
is recognized as falling within Saudi territory, the argument can be
made that DA’ISH is violating the territorial sovereignty of the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Supplemental arguments to the above could
include the minority rights of The Hijaz in relation to its cultural heri-
tage, its special status under Islamic law, and also the special heritage
status of Makkah and Medina under international law.

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 THE RELUCTANT HIJAZ
  However sound the above parallel may seem, it is unlikely to receive
a UN audience in the same way as the Greece–Macedonia dispute did.
DA’ISH has so far made no efforts to engage in international discourse
or to seek international state recognition. The only interaction that it
has maintained has been through the display of blunt force and public
executions via social media and web-based channels. Saudi Arabia
therefore has limited forums in which to legally challenge the use of
the name ‘Islamic State’.

The Hijaz: An Integrative Political Solution?

We have already argued that Islamic governance did, and still can, play
a role in the wider Islamic world, both Sunni and Shi’ite, in addition to
the Middle East. This would be a possibility if the idea of The Hijaz
were to be decoupled from the statehood geopolitics—in a way that
allowed The Hijaz to enjoy a distinct, autonomous, internationalized
status that reflected both the long-standing wish of its people for some
form of autonomy and its unique international status as, in a sense, the
commonwealth of the Islamic world.
  Seen from a purely pragmatic point of view, such a move would not
only allow The Hijaz to escape the self-determination trap, it would
also allow the Saudi state a wider geographical unity in the Arabian
Peninsula with the duty of ruling over the Holy Cities, a task that has
been a continual source of instability following sieges and armed
attacks in 1979 and 1989,48 a confrontation with Iranian pilgrims in
1987 in which, officially, 400 people died,49 and several Hajj stam-
pedes, the most recent in 2015.50 In September 2015 Iran’s president
called, in the UN General Assembly, for international protection and
joint custody over the Holy Sites.51 It would also allow the Saudi state
the possibility of reducing its 300-year-old dependence on Wahhabism,
which was once a source of ideological unity to Arabian tribes—in the
absence of any shared economic or social theory—but is now looking
increasingly like a source of instability, both internal and external.
  Such a move could be vital in allowing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
to deal with an increasingly threatening world. Russia’s experience
with Crimea and the Ukraine52 gives a clear example how proxy wars
could lead to external threats of separatist territorial ambitions. For it
is not only neo-medievalism that is eyeing The Hijaz,53 but revolution-

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 THE HIJAZ
ary Iran, Russia’s ally, which has recently demonstrated renewed pro-
prietary interest in the Holiest Sites in Medina.

— Reclaiming the Space

In the aftermath of the post-First World War Sykes–Picot order, nation-
alist and anti-colonial movements took over the region. By the late
1930s, with the release of Sir Henry McMahon’s correspondence with
Sharif Hussein of Makkah,54 the narrative of Arab nationalism was ret-
rospectively canonized as an ‘Arab Awakening’.55 Furthermore, two
types of governments emerged. On the one hand, the Middle East saw
a proliferation of dynastic monarchies, which were often imposed in
the interests of the British, the French, or the Americans. These
included Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Pahlavi Iran. On the other hand, a
number of pan-Arabist military regimes rose to power.56 It was fol-
lowed by a wave of ‘political Islam’.57
  The post-Soviet modern jihad narrative, in interpreting this phe-
nomenon, begins with ‘terrorism’, which became an obsession in secu-
rity and intelligence circles after the events of 11 September 2001.58
 

While al-Qaida was a product of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as

well as the post-1991 Gulf War era, DA’ISH primarily emerged in
response to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.59 It publicly declared a
Caliphate and the ‘end’ of Sykes–Picot on 29 June 2014, after seizing
 

parts of Iraq and Syria.60 This declaration came approximately a cen-

tury after the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, the subsequent efforts to
revive it, and the eventual dissection of these territories by the British
and the French.
  Along with the 2003 Iraq invasion and many other important devel-
opments, the Arab Spring popular uprisings that took place in late
2010 helped to significantly shape the future of the Middle East, a
region that still carries the imprint of the Entente a century earlier. The
2010 wave of uprisings has been generally characterized as the culmi-
nation of widespread, if not universal, outrage against despotism and
corruption. However, the rise of Islamists and the failure of institution-
alizing democratic participatory regimes in many of these countries
highlights the struggle to deal with the more political, social, and eco-
nomic reformation of the Islamic sphere. DA’ISH’s appearance may be

356
 THE RELUCTANT HIJAZ
analysed from several different angles. And, while it resurrects seem-
ingly traditional, outdated, and archaic concepts, it also raises the issue
of statehood from the perspective of institutions and sequence, leaving
aspects of international recognition as a final stepping stone vis-à-vis
the Islamic legitimacy process.
  This is what we have described as the negative space: in essence, the
exploitation of the constant regional failures through a negative and
absolutist common integrative moral discourse, which is destabilizing
for the region and the international order on several levels. A positive
space would mean circumventing such negative moral appeal—and,
indeed, crises. The Hijaz factor would fill the void that it left a hundred
years ago, just as it did 1400 years before, allowing a superior Islamic
morality and a coherent reunion with the international order.
  The Caliphate worldview must not be ignored. It must be explained
and presented as a new model of governance in a world of multi-layered
authority. The experiment of unifying Shari’a codes was an inspired
idea. But now, almost a century later, we can safely say that the experi-
ment has failed. What Sanhuri Pasha tried to achieve in the last century
failed against what DA’ISH offered by way of a Caliphate programme.
Therefore, the Islamic world must accept, and the West must allow for,
two essential steps: (a) the symbolic fortification of Islam through its
Holy Places, as opposed to the incubation of radical ideologies without
a central authority; (b) building on norms of governance taken from
Islamic Legitimate Policy, in a way that will allow, facilitate, and enhance
transnational Islamic cooperation in the realms of trade, economy,
development, and industry. Governance, therefore, should take real
meaning and clear forms, easily comprehensible and implemented, even
if through soft-law institutionalization and norms. If the Muslim peoples
crave and yearn for such symbolism, then it is natural to view The Hijaz
with such centrality, and accord it a very special legal status.

— Saudi Arabia Geopolitical Challenges

The population of Saudi Arabia increased from 10 million in 1980 to
20 million in 2000, and is just short of 30 million today, if we omit the
2 million or so illegal immigrants.61 This demographic, a third of
whom are under the age of fourteen, are a rather volatile mass, with

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 THE HIJAZ
which the country’s rulers have never had to deal with before.62 Now
they are going to have to attempt the feat with a rigid political system,
which has major difficulties when it comes to reaching down to the
whole spectrum of the society, given that all branches of govern-
ment—executive, legislative, and judicial—are in the possession of a
small kinship group which has been, by and large, of an advanced
age.63 As a result, they have found it rather challenging to deliver any
form of meaningful popular participation, much less allow for a
peaceful turnover of elites and dynamic social development, with the
corresponding redistribution of power and wealth. The possibility of
another major and complex crisis with violent consequences (very
similar to that of Syria) a little further down the line must be clear
enough to anyone who cares to look at the similarities and study
them. This challenge encompasses questions of participation, inclu-
sion, inequality, access, and so forth. But, in the case of Saudi Arabia,
Karen House argues, it is epitomized by the need for good and flexible
governance which accommodates the changing domestic social con-
text and, ultimately, the question of succession:
Saudis watch the diminishing line of Al Saud brothers and the impend-
ing generational succession as if it were an old-fashioned time-bomb
with a lit fuse. The wick burns ever shorter, advancing a moment of
explosion that could destroy life as they know it. But they are powerless
to remove the bomb or snuff out the flame. All they can do is watch,
wait, and worry.64
  Alongside the likely difficulties with internal management, the Saudi
state will have to face a wider region that is becoming ever more
unstable. The story of the rise of a violent and militarily capable brand
of jihadi ideology has been told many times. But now it has arrived at
the north-eastern border of the kingdom. DA’ISH soldiers are now
within a day’s drive of Riyadh; and that has prompted the Saudi author-
ities to build a kind of high-tech Maginot Line across 600 kilometres of
its border with Iraq.
  Further to the threat posed by this mutation of its own creed, whose
‘warriors’ are explicitly motivated by the goal of ‘freeing’ the Holy
Cities and establishing a modern version of the classical Caliphate, the
Saudis are also faced by a resurgent Iran, with which, rightly or
wrongly, it feels itself to be locked in a geopolitical struggle. The politi-

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cal map of the Middle East, seen from Riyadh, gives the impression of
gradual encirclement.
  Set against that list of woes, there are few regional allies beyond the
UAE and Bahrain—which is, effectively, a military dependency of
Saudi Arabia in all but name. The Sultanate of Oman is indifferent, and
Kuwait friendly but ineffectual. The Egyptian regime is fighting a low-
level insurgency and, at present at least, is more of a liability that must
be propped up at all costs than a means of buttressing its neighbour
across the Red Sea.
  Then, finally, there is the issue of US foreign policy and the changing
geopolitical importance of Saudi oil and the restructuring of the indus-
try. Oil production and supply and demand in the global energy market
are essential for reading the future.
  If one distanced oneself from the long-standing strategic US–Saudi
relations, one could make the argument that the focus of the American
reaction to the 9/11 attacks should have been—at least politically and
diplomatically—Saudi Arabia. In the sense that, the US response should
not have been focused upon Iraq (which had nothing to do with the
attacks), or Afghanistan (which was nothing more than a training
ground that the Americans had themselves been partly responsible for),
but upon the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, given that the attackers were
its citizens, and also because the Kingdom espoused a closely related
(even though antagonistic) doctrine which provided the wellspring for
the jihadi impulse. The key argument, in this case, would not have been
that Saudi Arabia supported the attacks; it would be that it did nothing
to prevent them, or target the root causes driving them—namely, radi-
cal strands of Wahhabi thinking with dangerous if not openly hostile
and intolerant worldviews.
  Finally, there is the further consequence of the decline in oil prices,
suggesting that Saudi Arabia’s apparently limitless wealth may run out
surprisingly quickly. For instance, the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) expects the country to run a $108 billion deficit with shortfalls
of some 10 per cent of economic output over the next four years. If the
   

country ever loses the ability to continue its welfare programmes and
‘social economic contract’ with its own population, it may find that the
only other tools available, should reforms fail, are in the hands of police
and soldiers.

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  All in all, taking stock of internal social, political, and ideological
dynamics, aspects of governance, regional (geo-)politics, and a series
of projections and analyses, House presents the following three
scenarios:
Much of the Middle East remains in turmoil. … Meanwhile, Saudi
Arabia—far and away the most important country in the region … still
seems stable and largely peaceful. But, on its current flight path, Saudi
Arabia is in serious trouble, so how may the journey end?
Unfortunately, the most likely path, given the risk aversion of the
elderly rulers, is continuation of the status quo. That option would
mean continued and deepening economic and social stagnation, with
the ensuing risk of social explosion. A second option would be to open
up the society and economy to relieve stagnation and begin the process
of the revitalization. A third course would be a reversion to the rigid
religiosity and repression of the 1980s. A final outcome would be chaos
and collapse. The aged, infirm, and politically paralyzed Saudi leader-
ship for now is sticking with the status quo.65
  We argue for the necessity of the second scenario (which has indeed
taken place with the ascendance of Prince Mohammad ibn Salman as
crown prince), coupled with the need for an opening up to the world,
a bridge for cooperation and understanding, both regional and global,
centred upon the cradle of Islam, The Hijaz. Such a move would fur-
ther empower Saudi Arabia in both the regional and global arenas,
upping its legitimacy and dispelling claims, driving the much-needed
internal and external multi-layered integration, shaping the narrative
and leading the process, on all levels. Such a proactive and pre-emptive
domestic and foreign policy would establish Saudi Arabia as one of the
pivotal global actors in the pragmatic, but also the normative, reli-
gious, and soft-power spheres of the twenty-first century, attaining
greater stability, a stronger voice, and winning more allies.

— What Kind of Hijaz?

The decoupling of The Hijaz from the Saudi state would also mean, in
so many ways, a decoupling of Islam from Wahhabism. It would allow
the kingdom, as we have said, to deal with some of the ideological
drivers of its growing instability. And although it may also lose some of
the absolute control that ruling over the Holy Places might be thought

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to confer, a freer trusteeship as King Abdulaziz imagined, ‘The Hijaz
for the Hijazis’, would still allow it great international legal scope to
protect, but also facilitate, pilgrim affairs.66
  What political programme might be put in place in The Hijaz? As we
are discussing the role of self-determination, this is naturally a question
that can be answered only by understanding the dual nature of The
Hijaz: the autonomous Hijaz situated in the Arabian Peninsula; and, no
doubt, the internationalized representations from the rest of the
Muslim world—much as the Mufti of Singapore wished in the 1920s.67
  We query whether the starting point for a political programme
might be the seven points of the National Charter promulgated by
Hijazis themselves from Makkah:
1. To liberate The Hijaz from all non-Hijazi authority and preserve its
independence within the boundaries obtained by the Arab revolution.
This would involve the non-recognition of any industrial or com-
mercial privilege given to any foreign person, body, or government.
2. To convene a national assembly which will hold a general and free
consultation to decide the destiny of the country and its form of
government. An aspiration of all Arab states is to achieve popular
democratic rule.
3. To eliminate despotic absolute rule and to set up a popular, repre-
sentative, and constitutional regime founded on teachings of Islam.
4. To allow freedom of thought and faith.
5. To promote national economic development and to adopt every
modern means in the fields of communication, education, health,
military matters, agriculture, and industry; setting up a wider eco-
nomic programme that allows for international trade and economic
integration based on comparative advantage.
6. To convene an Arab congress at Makkah representing the Arab
countries who are neighbours of The Hijaz, with the goal of remov-
ing causes of difference and setting up one united national purpose
in policy covering foreign, economic, cultural, and defence
matters.
7. To call a general Islamic congress in Makkah to execute the desires
of Islamic nations and to decide upon means that guarantee the
comfort of the pilgrims, and the protection of their interest in The

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Hijaz so long as they are not incompatible with the sovereignty of
the country.68
  This programme, if enacted tomorrow—with only very few adapta-
tions—would have the effect of giving the moral and physical centre of
Islam the kind of democratic government that the Arab world is, at
present, conspicuously lacking. Such a development would then go a
long way towards creating the political stability the Arab world is
equally in want of. Advocating for the rule of law and democracy,
inspired by the greater teaching of Islam—but not puritanically apply-
ing one form or another—and establishing constitutional representa-
tive rule is, indeed, that golden-age ideal.
  Allowing for wider interaction with other schools and kinds of faith
within Islam and the rest of the world, and according The Hijaz a spe-
cial international law status, would guarantee it as a trust for mankind.
The territorial centrality of pilgrimage for all Muslims, as a common
heritage, clearly deserves international protection and administration.
Not only might it enjoy its traditional place in history, but it would
create a common place for other nations and different faiths to interact
with Islam—to understand it.

Integration in Lieu of Broken Arab Statehood

The push for enhanced Gulf integration has been in gestation for
decades; in fact, since the anti-Ottoman Arab revolt that The Hijaz
experienced a century ago.69
  According to Roger Owen, the Middle East has, remarkably, con-
tained few economic resources beyond agriculture since the nineteenth
century. And, even though most of the region was united under the
Ottoman Empire administratively and politically, no regional market
existed.70 In 2013 a World Bank report for the Deauville Partnership71
of the Group of 8 (G8), fittingly titled From Political to Economic Awakening
in the Arab World:The Path of Economic Integration, assertively stated that a
key symptom of the Arab world’s failure is that, with the exception of
oil, it remains the least trade-integrated region in the world.72 The
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia
(ESCWA), produced a report in 2013 using the same nationalist appeal
for an ‘awakening’ to call for integration as a ‘development imperative’

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for ‘Arab revival’. It described regional failure as vexing because of the
common heritage, language, history, and culture.73
  Reflecting on the European experiment, not merely one based on
the Peace of Westphalia, but also the Jean Monnet-inspired peace of the
European Coal and Steel Community, one might aptly ask why there
has not been a peace through an Arab ‘Oil and Water Community’.
Since the Second World War, and with the explosion of literature about
regionalism, the Middle East has witnessed several attempts at region-
alism which include the 1953 treaty to organize transit trade among
the states of the Arab League. Following the footsteps of the European
Economic Community (EEC), there was a short-lived attempt to cre-
ate a closer form of Arab common market in 1957, followed by the
1964 agreement establishing an Arab common market consisting of
Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Syria.74
  Kuwait devised a rather interesting model for economic integration,
through the creation of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic
Development in 1961. This scheme called for integration by means of
the spread of oil wealth. It possessed many advantages, yet never really
developed, since the Kuwait Fund’s oil-driven economic plans did not
prevail until the early 1970s. Regardless of how intriguing the idea
seemed—and, arguably, still seems theoretically—oil distribution
never assumed a significant role in international trade law.
  The Middle East also witnessed a wave of sub-regional integration
attempts, starting with the Maghreb Arab Union (MAU), established in
1964 by Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. As with
several other similar initiatives, member states were more concerned
with their individual industrial development programmes and struc-
tural problems, due to government organizations’ monopolies over
imports. The most important factor, however, is that individual mem-
ber states negotiated agreements independently, thinking they would
obtain a better result.75
  The second sub-regional organization, which we will discuss in
detail in the next section, is the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC),
established in 1981 by Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
and the UAE. Seen as an ambitious attempt to create a dynamic form
 

of political union, the difficulty in this case was that integration had
limited options since the Gulf economies are nearly identical and there
was not enough trade to speak of.

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 THE HIJAZ
  There also was the short-lived Arab Cooperation Council, consisting
of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Yemen, and the 1981 Agreement for
Facilitation and Promotion of Intra-Arab Trade, signed by eighteen
member states of the Arab League.76
  The League of the Arab States (LAS) or Arab League,77 established
in March 1945, is considered the dominant intra-Middle East forum
for regional cooperation—including collaboration on economic mat-
ters—through its arrangements of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area
(GAFTA).78 GAFTA was launched by the member states of the Arab
League on 1 January 1998. It aims to revive the above-mentioned 1981
 

Agreement for the Facilitation and Promotion of Trade among Arab

League members. GAFTA embodies specific commitments, such as the
elimination of tariffs, import duties, and other barriers to trade in
goods of Arab origin, which were all to be eliminated over ten-year
period ending in 2008. As it is limited to goods and not services,
GAFTA is a traditional preferential trade agreement.
  There were also three major external regional initiatives: one
American, one European, and one international. The US government’s
Greater Middle East initiative was proposed at the June 2004 G8
Summit by the US president, George W. Bush. Democracy was identi-
 

fied as the all-encompassing cure for the region’s afflictions. By 2006 it

was already clear that the Bush plan, at least when judged by its own
objectives, had failed. On top of that failure, it also jeopardized any
serious collective internal effort in the Middle East for serious and
credible democratic efforts.
  The European effort, in the form of the Union for the Mediterranean
(UfM), was established in 2008, at the instigation of the French presi-
dent, Nicolas Sarkozy. The organization comprises all twenty-eight EU
member states, eight Arab states of the Mediterranean, Turkey, and
four non-EU European states of the Mediterranean. Sarkozy’s original
conception, in which the organization would have a structure based on
that of the EU, with common institutions, was far more ambitious, and
was opposed by many of France’s EU partners—particularly Germany.
Perhaps as a partial consequence of this, the establishment of the UfM
has had no substantive impact in either the Mediterranean or the
Middle East.
  Finally, the Deauville Partnership, launched by the G8 Heads of
State in May 2011 to support the ‘historic’ political and economic

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 THE RELUCTANT HIJAZ
transformation under way in the Arab Spring countries (Egypt, Jordan,
Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia), was seen as ‘strategic and timely’.79 The
members included Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Kuwait,
Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE, the UK, the USA, and
nine other international and regional financial institutions. The bene-
factor partnership countries did not include Yemen and Syria.
  In March 2010, at the Arab League summit in Sirte in Libya, the
Secretary General of the League, Amr Moussa, outlined an initiative for
a forum for regional cooperation and conflict resolution, to consist of
the Arab states, Iran, and Turkey.80 In addition to recommending that
the League should engage directly with Iran on issues of contention,
and particularly vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclear energy programme, he called
for a mechanism through which Iran and Turkey could be brought
within the scope of the Arab League. He expanded upon this later in
the year, terming it the Arab Neighbouring States Policy, which would
encompass the Arab League states, Iran, Turkey, Cyprus, Malta, and
some non-Arab African states, to promote regional cooperation and
understanding. Greater specificity on this initiative was difficult to
achieve, especially regarding Iran, between the Egyptian president
Hosni Mubarak, the late Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud ibn Faisal
and Secretary General Amr Moussa.
  In June 2010, before the breakdown in Syria during the Arab Spring,
Turkey spearheaded an initiative to bring together Syria, Lebanon, and
Jordan to sign an—in many respects unprecedented—agreement. This
was the Quadripartite High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council
(HLCC), which aspired to create a zone of free movement of goods
and people.81 This was unprecedented, particularly because of the per-
sistence of deeply held grievances on the part of Lebanon and Syria
towards their former imperial ruler, Turkey. Furthermore, it demon-
strated the potential for inter-state economic priorities to transcend
issues of territorial contestation, such as the ongoing dispute between
Syria and Turkey over the Iskenderun (or Hatay) region that was a part
of Syria until 1938, and has a significant Syrian population.82 In a way,
multi-layered cooperation and partnership was to pave the way for
integration ‘with a view to strengthening their cooperation further
within a multinational and institutionalized framework and to develop
a long-term strategic partnership and with a view to enhancing solidar-
ity among us and moving towards economic integration’.83

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 THE HIJAZ
  An obvious candidate for regional political leadership has always
been the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which we dis-
cussed earlier. Beyond the symbolism of solidarity, however, it has been
difficult for the OIC to achieve wider integrative goals, despite the
strides it has made in the last few years. The OIC, the second-largest
international organization after the UN, remains captive to the will and
wealth of its more powerful member states.
  Therefore, against this complex background and the web of broader
challenges outlined and analysed in this section, softer and more eco-
nomically focused alternatives must be considered, in the spirit of the
looser charter envisioned by the Hijazis.84

— Neo-Regionalism between Theory and Practice

Generally, the late 2010s is an interesting time to be discussing region-
alism, global and regional integration, the deepening of ties, and so
forth. We have witnessed the return of populism and ethno-centric—if
not ethno-isolationist—politics in Europe and the USA. We have seen
 

the first ‘EU-exit’, Brexit, the departure of the UK from the most
successful regional integration initiative to date. The EU at the time of
the UK’s departure remains a prosperous collection of twenty-eight
(soon minus one) advanced liberal democracies, enjoying freedom and
the rule of law, a considerable degree of stability and prosperity, and an
abundance of peace. This peace has largely been seen as a by-product of
the multi-layered cooperation, socialization, and integration facilitated
by the EU umbrella and the incessant confidence-building exercises
that have transformed the core of Europe. As the UK leaves, the USA
has elected an American president who is part of the economic estab-
lishment, yet ‘anti-systemic’, who wants trade but prefers bilateral
trade agreements as opposed to regional initiatives, and would not
mind seeing the EU losing more members.
  The election of Donald Trump also comes with a shift away from the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), advanced by
the previous White House, ending the concept of a big ‘Western
Bridge’ to unite the world’s two largest economies, those of the EU
and the USA, and ensure transatlantic leadership in global trade.85 The
new American president is sceptical about free trade, especially when

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it comes to agreements negotiated multilaterally. In this context,
America also stepped away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Against this background, however, the emerging economic super-
power, China, rather welcomed these developments. In fact, China has
been advancing—gradually, steadily, resolutely, and strategically—a
new ‘Silk Road’ policy, best captured by President Xi Jinping’s 2013
One Belt One Road initiative, now the ‘Built Road Initiative’, which
has one underlying aim: to multiply trade routes, links and connec-
tions, logistics networks and business opportunities for and with
China. It will pass through more than sixty countries—from Europe
and Asia to Africa and the Middle East. To achieve this, the policy
advances two key platforms: (a) a far-reaching land-route infrastruc-
ture development and investment programme, the so-called Eurasian
land bridge linking China’s east coast with a supply and logistics chain
to Western Europe (and especially critical ports such as Piraeus and
Rotterdam); and (b) the so-called maritime Silk Road, a sea route or
nautical chain which again starts from China’s east coast, and crosses
the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, and passes from European
ports and the pivotal maritime trade routes into the immediate neigh-
bouring seas.86
  This re-casting of Chinese trading influence, power, and reach will
probably bring to mind historical parallels and connections associated
with the rise of China and the Islamic world. Peter Frankopan makes
this case forcefully, by reminding us of the influence and centrality of
the Persian Silk Roads, the Islamic world’s trade and ties to China, and
the 2,000-year or so history among these nations and peoples.87
Frankopan goes further, highlighting the re-emergence of the East, a
trend that comes through a developing politico-economic ‘renais-
sance’, made possible, among others, through China’s above-discussed
strategy and policies. It is not just business, trade, development, and
economics that can receive a boost from China’s OBOR; there are also
some who see opportunities in the security sphere too88—and in mul-
tilateral contexts.89
  But how will the Arab and Islamic world fare with these major
global shifts? Will it struggle, as it did with the international order in
the last century? Will it contribute a positive story? In reality, what is
needed in the Middle East is a radical approach to regionalism, which

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 THE HIJAZ
has been witnessed in the past. There must be a clear identification of
the common challenges, followed by a common commitment to
address and overcome them through a tailored APEC-like regional
initiative. It would involve: (a) the removal of barriers and widespread
liberalization of trade and investment laws; (b) the enabling of greater
mobility of firms and individual investors across the region; and (c)
regional cooperation and consolidation that will expand the economic
potential and capacities of the member states. We will not elaborate
further here; this has been discussed extensively in previous publica-
tions,90 and we will also revisit this proposal later in this chapter
through a comprehensive lens.
  There are many theoretical approaches to international reorienta-
tion. From a liberal point of view, regionalism is the outcome of trans-
national interactions between individual actors that are represented by
governmental institutions in a predictable, transparent, and—norma-
tively—legitimate fashion. Liberalism does not necessarily require
formal structures, but can also accommodate ‘soft law’ approaches that
reflect the preferences of those international actors.91 The transgovern-
mentalism approach extends the basic idea of liberalism but emphasizes
‘regulatory networks’, among governmental actors specifically. It is
also closely related to functionalism as it emphasizes government func-
tions as the ongoing gist of these networks.92 Constructivism is focused
on the idea of an international system resulting from continuous pro-
cess based on norms that translate the state’s ‘interests and preferences’
and ‘identities’.93 The postmodernist theoretical outlook has been
developed to stand for ‘indeterminacy’. From the Far East, Sungjoon
Cho has argued for the postmodern features of the Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC).94 Cho does state that the use of post-
modernism is a very narrow one, in that it is a modern international
institution with certain attributes that form a fusion of bilateralism,
regionalism, and multilateralism.95 Regardless of the unreliability of
the term ‘postmodern’, these attributes, which are discussed in the
following section, still make up for the neo-functional modernist the-
ory behind regionalism.96 Other theories might also be employed, if
one considers process failures in international organization.97
  We argue for the virtues of an APEC-like structure, firstly because
of its adaptation of ‘open regionalism’, which is a concept that elimi-

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 THE RELUCTANT HIJAZ
nates preferentiality and exclusivity problems. This is an important
advantage, as it effectively extends the scope of the liberalization agen-
das of the various members and promotes cross-cultural dialogue.
  Secondly, we argue for soft institutionalization because this allows
for an organizational cooperative scheme, which is an inherently more
efficient system for regional integration, and circumvents the short-
comings of the rigid EU system. These are represented by its informal-
ity, soft institutionalization, soft laws, and a non-binding character.
Collectively, they constitute its flexible nature, making it an ideal vessel
for developing legal norms that ensure economic integration and
peace, suitable for both domestic and international agendas.
  Finally, incrementalism, which assumes that any international agree-
ment is motivated by a few initiating countries which participate in
formulating declarative principles and future guidelines. Then, in turn,
by virtue of continued deliberations and negotiations, these initiatives
evolve with a level of sophistication, to ultimately become very plau-
sible objectives capable of achievement.98
  The conceptualization of this ‘APEC-like structure’ as a nexus of
arrangements can ultimately work as a vehicle for deeper regional inte-
gration, cohesion, openness, and peace. Intra-Middle East integration
can foster regional cooperation in the regulatory arena. Further to
shape or structure, the gist of regionalism lies in its format. We are not
obliged to assume that there is only one (proto-)type or archetype of
regionalism, such as regional trading agreements. Regionalism does
not necessarily mean forming a tangible, rigid ‘bloc’ among neighbour-
ing countries. This might not work in the Middle East milieu. It could
instead be a looser, more ‘tailored’ alliance, which might well be a
better format for the region. Arguably, the areas that present greater
immediate prospects include: military issues; security; economics;
common interests (for example, in energy, trade, investments, finance,
or research and development); and culture. With such a structure and
broader focus, this body could also be open to other non-regional
members such as China, the USA, and even Israel, with space for
observer status or targeted partnerships with other international orga-
nizations such as the EU or the AU and their member states.
  The requirements of regional re-design in the Middle East necessi-
tate a broader mandate that encompasses other factors of crucial

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 THE HIJAZ
importance to the region, beyond economics. It is envisaged that the
explicit goals of the Arab regional body would be divided into three
categories, based on the prioritization attached to each respectively.
  Firstly, enhancing economic cooperation between member states
would form the core of the body’s mission, with the broadly defined
methods for so doing being derived from APEC’s Three Pillars. For the
reasons noted above, basing interaction between member states on
development and economic factors first would be the default entry
level formula. In addition to helping foster confidence between adver-
saries, the development of stable, sustainable, and mutually gainful
economic relations would create even greater incentives for resolving
other, more complex, issues of dispute.
  Beyond the focus on economic matters, the regional body would
also, secondly, serve as a forum for addressing political concerns, par-
ticularly those likely to impair cooperation, whether directly or indi-
rectly, or increase the likelihood of political instability.
  Framing the discussion of problems pertaining to such matters in an
economic, diplomatic, and dispute-resolution sense would counter
much of the entrenched political positioning thereon, and permit an
alternative to what might be seen as the ‘conventional wisdom’. For
example, rather than being treated as foreign policy matters, disputes
over water or mineral resources would be addressed from the perspec-
tive of economic benefits and detriments, thereby stripping away ques-
tions of nationalism and ideology.
  With particular regard to conflict, transnational disputes, and weap-
ons of mass destruction, attention could be focused on managing exist-
ing circumstances with a view to containment, as opposed to more
ambitious attempts to resolve long-standing disputes.
  Lastly, in truth, the toxicity of some challenges in the region is such
that their political resolution is effectively a prerequisite for progress
towards complete, region-wide prosperity. However, for political issues
beyond security and defence, and cooperation in a sphere of a less imme-
diately incendiary nature, the regional body could provide an apt forum
for discussion, and possible collaborative remedial measures.
  A common defence and security system(s) could then converge in a
supra-national alternative dispute crisis resolution (ADR) centre, over-
lapping with the political goals of activating diplomacy within and on

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 THE RELUCTANT HIJAZ
behalf of the region.99 A common defence platform and force might
also be deployed for peacekeeping missions within the region, when
members of the greater regional community are undergoing civil or
non-state combatant conflicts. Of course, positive externalities are not
limited to geographical borders, and would soon be felt by all—a key
tenet of the open regionalism inherent in such a community.
  It should be noted that, in any region, securing consensus on politi-
cal issues presents significantly greater challenges than cooperation on
economic matters. This is particularly true in the Middle East. It is for
this reason that the Arab regional body’s capacity to address political
issues authoritatively requires a different level of legitimization,
beyond force and wealth. This level of legitimization, we argue, cen-
tres around The Hijaz; as the pillar upon which this regional coopera-
tion initiative can be founded. The Hijaz can catalyse regional harmony
and understanding on the basis of the aforementioned common heri-
tage, as well as a global dialogue which will help other regional and
global actors to better understand the region, as well as Islam, and
engage with it more constructively and more beneficially, for all. This
can be seen as a multi-layered confidence-building process, concur-
rently increasing cooperation, understanding, and harmony, both
within the region and globally.

— Towards an Arab Union

The gradual independence of the Gulf states of the Arabian Peninsula
brought them into recognition of a common destiny, determined by
the territorial integrity of the Peninsula and their common political
and cultural features. In the context of various internal and external
security challenges facing the region, the Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC) was established in 1981. Since its inception the GCC has aimed
to enhance economic and political collaboration between Saudi Arabia,
Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Bahrain. The idea of union has
been under consideration from the early days of the GCC, but for three
decades it seemed to be out of reach. In December 2011, during the
Supreme Council Summit in Riyadh, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
made the most explicit calls for unification, which were later adopted:
the Riyadh Declaration.100

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 THE HIJAZ
  In truth, it is not the oil wealth, deserved or undeserved, that solidi-
fied the rule of the Gulf shaykhdoms. It is the presence of the holy
territory of Hijaz that primarily legitimized the Saudi regime, as theirs
by extension. The Hijaz is the anchor of the security and legitimacy of
Arabia. Granting autonomy to The Hijaz as an outcome of such discus-
sions could only strengthen the position of Saudi Arabia, and the
Arabian Peninsula, within the region. Apart from earlier-mentioned
arguments, Saudi Arabia would gain the basis for establishing an Arab
Union. It is in the common interest of all Islamic countries, but par-
ticularly GCC member states in the Arabian Peninsula, to provide
security for the pilgrims of the Holy Cities of Makkah and Medina.
  As one of the goals of the union is to build a common security system
to confront any danger, as demonstrated by the Peninsula Shield,101 the
GCC’s combined military force, and the GCC+4 cooperation agenda
of September 2014102 to counter external threats in addition to extrem-
ism in other places, the participation of The Hijaz as an autonomous
state would be significant. The states taking part in the GCC, with due
respect to sovereignty, and by no means interfering in the internal affairs
of Saudi Arabia, should positively welcome any kind of political partici-
pation of The Hijaz. Firstly, because it will demonstrate an openness to
dialogue, and consensus—not only among the member states of a pos-
sible union, but even within their domestic realms. Secondly, because
such a decision would strengthen the future union. Recent diplomatic
challenges to the GCC, internally among its members and across the
Gulf with Iran, as well as, more importantly, the threat posed to all
states outside the Peninsula, may be overcome by the positive political
statesmanship of Saudi Arabia and accepting increased political partici-
pation of The Hijaz—within the union itself at least. The thirty-seventh
GCC Summit in Bahrain highlighted several points tending in the right
direction, including: (a) further deepening, cooperation, and integra-
tion; (b) ‘… full equal treatment among Gulf citizens in view of the
joint market’; (c) greater cooperation, integration, and openness in the
credit and finance sphere; (d) further deepening and joint initiatives in
economics, development, and regional infrastructure (a ‘Gulf railway’);
(e) a common stance and action in security—‘support to all regional
and international efforts to fight DA’ISH and all other terrorist net-
works and organizations in Syria, Iraq and other regions’; and (f) a series

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of common positions regarding pivotal regional and international issues
in the sphere of politics, international relations, and law.103 Moreover,
the UK’s participation in and contribution to the Summit was historic,
and ties in with this book’s suggestion of an inclusive approach to
regionalism, open to other important global actors as well as other key
multilateral organizations.104
  A greater focus on the Peninsula rather than the shores of the Gulf
will go far. This must include a serious socio-economic effort towards
Yemen, which has suffered major setbacks over the decades, as well as
Jordan, the natural fault line of the Arabian Peninsula and its territorial
integrity. Such efforts could have a unifying effect for Arab states
towards an even larger ‘open regional’ economic effort.105 With a solid
Arab union at its core, fortified by wider Islamic internationalization,
including with Shi’a Muslims, in the face of the imminent and real
threat posed by DA’ISH, the present-day Faith Militant,106 which chal-
lenges both the Islamic legitimacy and territorial integrity of other
Arab and Islamic nations, a new Middle Eastern regional organization
founded on soft institutionalization, open regionalism, and incremen-
talism could indeed be welcomed. It is, certainly, very sorely needed.
Finally, as the centre of gravity of the region, the Islamic world, and the
Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia must welcome The Hijaz, its core, as
an integrative factor to protect its territorial integrity and exercise a
programme for the patronage of Islam (not Wahhabism) through its
soft power with the rest of the world, as well as a common heritage for
all mankind.
  The point should be made that The Hijaz would constructively enter
this debate as unionists rather than separatists, which is in the spirit of
Islamic unity. The context of this effort to form an Arabian (and Gulf)
union, as well as foster and embed Islamic solidarity, would be a timely
occasion and an ideal opportunity to give to the Holy Cities a role in
regional discourse—namely, a new version of a shared identity in the
Arabian Peninsula, and a potent source of soft power for the Islamic
world and its central institutions. Through treaties and an open region-
alism frameworks such as APEC, this solution might satisfy both inter-
national law and the ideal of the umma. This does not conflict with the
territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia or the national geographical depth
of the Arabian Peninsula.

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 CONCLUSION

This book has aimed to demonstrate the critical consequences that

flowed from the extinguishing of the Kingdom of The Hijaz in 1924
under international law. No means of legal reversal were obvious at the
time, short of intervention by a Mandatory power, which in western
Arabia meant the British. The interested regional bureaus of the British
government viewed the takeover as a means to further their aims for
regional management in the post-First World War period. The house of
Saud was ultimately viewed by London as an outlier in terms of
Britain’s long-term imperial interests.
  Furthermore, the British regarded Islamic affairs as a source of dan-
ger rather than opportunity, and the imposition of the regime of Ibn
Saud seemed to be a reasonable outcome, whatever misgivings there
may have been about his capacity to bring prosperity to The Hijaz. The
local brand of Wahhabism may have been distinguished by its intoler-
ance to other forms of Islam, a proselytizing fervour, and was guilty, by
association, with events such as the Taif Massacre. But Wahhabism was
preferable in British eyes to the kind of greater statehood ambitions
that the Hashemites had shown, which were difficult to predict, and
entirely incompatible with Western plans to divide the Middle East into
spheres of influence and control.
  Although the elimination of The Hijaz caused no immediate visible
damage to the fabric of international relations, the unleashing of
Wahhabi ideology in the Middle East now looks like one of the graver
international law consequences of British policy (including that of
Churchill himself) in its sunset years, and deserves far more attention
when considering statehood in the region.

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 THE HIJAZ
  Nonetheless, even today, more than a century after the events that
shaped the Middle East, there is still time to right the wrongs of the
past and pre-empt the catastrophe that is unfolding in the region; even
save Arab nation-state.
  The disruptive impact of the construct of Westphalian statehood,
and the Enlightenment notion of self-determination, precluded the
development of a genuine practice of Islamic statecraft as the source of
tenets of collective identity and statesmanship in the Arab hemisphere.
Despite the fact that these concepts were recognized as tools of
Western imperial influence and control, they were nevertheless, in an
act of self-entrapment, adopted by consecutive generations of Arab
leaders, as steadfast rudiments of the emerging Arab and broader
Islamic polity.
  What is now possible is a re-examination of Islamic governance in
the history and untapped potential of The Hijaz, the first state of Islam
in Makkah and Medina. This vision of The Hijaz extends from gover-
nance in Saudi Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Islamic commu-
nity as a whole, to its interaction with the wider world. It rejects the
appropriation of Islamic governance and the concept of an Islamic state
and the Caliphate by the postmodern non-territorial doctrines of al-
Qaida, and, conversely, by the neo-medievalist DA’ISH, based on the
absolute and abhorrent control over territory and people, under the
false flag of Islamic doctrine.
  The case for the reinstatement of The Hijaz as a ‘special status’,
(semi-)autonomous entity is threefold. Firstly, from the point of view
of modern international law, The Hijaz deserves active and special
international status and protection. The grounds for this claim are the
area’s historical, cultural, and religious significance: a unique area
requires an exceptional form of legal accommodation. This argument
is buttressed by pragmatic considerations such as the regional and
worldwide benefits of a reinstated Hijaz, secure from intervention and
scandal: a century of strife in the Middle East has fuelled instability
throughout the world.
  The risk of a rapid collapse in the present international law regime,
or a long-term rearrangement of international positions and commit-
ments in the Middle East, threatens the vital interests of the modern
Saudi state—and the Arabian Peninsula, for that matter. It faces an

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 CONCLUSION
amalgamation of external threats and the risk of entanglement in
regional conflicts, as well as a mixture of internal challenges: ideologi-
cal, but also social and economic—and particularly its heavy reliance
on hydrocarbon natural resources as the sole balancing point for its
political economy.
  Finally, this study has highlighted the value of The Hijaz as a soft power
‘integrative agent’ that transcends its own sacred territory for: (a) its
own benefit and that of the Saudi state, as well as the territorial integrity
of the Arabian Peninsula; (b) the Arab world, given that the Islamic ven-
ture was and continues to be Arab at its core; (c) the Islamic world as the
sacred territory that holds spiritual and legal value for each Muslim, in
its simplest form as the fifth pillar of the Islamic creed, which is to make
the physical pilgrimage to The Hijaz; (d) its cultural heritage as a focal
point of 23 per cent of the world’s population, creating not only an inter-
   

national duty to preserve The Hijaz, but also a central point with which
the West and the world in general can shape their encounters with Islam
and the Middle East; and therefore (e) serving as the natural epicentre of
an Arab regional initiative which will help usher the region into a new era
of cooperation, security, and prosperity.

The Afterlife of The Hijaz and the Right to Self-Determination

The Hijaz has, at different times, offered both a domestic and a more
general Arab nationalistic view, despite the more recent curtailment of
its historical status as the beacon of Islam, a role in which it still chal-
lenges the status quo. So the case for change is more than simply prob-
lematic. A further Islamic role for The Hijaz would invigorate the
myriad of Islamic factions, whether Faith Militant groups or political
parties with Islamic attributes, who dream of a Caliphate.
  It was Hizb al-Tahrir that kept the dream alive in the modern era
between the fall of the Caliphate and neo-medievalism. Taqi al-Din al-
Nabhani took a very aggressive approach to ensure the spread of the
message around the world.1 One of its contemporary academic sup-
porters, Reza Pankhurst,2 until very recently maintained a balanced
message as a voice of struggle for global Islamic union. Until the turn
of the last century the Tahrirists were almost alone in keeping the
Caliphate dream alive. Osama Bin Laden and Vice President Cheney

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 THE HIJAZ
introduced themselves to the discourse in 2004, stating and acknowl-
edging the existence of a grand aim for a ‘universal Caliphate’. They
engaged each other and the rest of the world, resulting in a grand
existential threat for Western democracies. In so doing, they raised
both the military profile of the USA and jihadi consciousness. Bin
Laden wanted to split the world into two.
  The jurist-turned-nationalist political thinker, Rashid Rida, advocat-
ing the dream, prescribing the ideal, and then recognizing the mirage,
emerged with a more Kafkaesque view. He accepted the idea as unre-
alistic, yet still hung on to it, as a symbol, until he died. Sanhuri Pasha
came as a constitutional breath of fresh air, advocating an Eastern inter-
national order with an Islamic league. But even beyond Sanhuri’s
renaissance, what the Caliphate idea suggests to us today is an interna-
tional relations whisper, a world order that is inspired, even if funda-
mentally different, from the prevailing Westphalian model of the
nation-state. Carool Kersten summarizes the modern position, stating
that ‘instead of using only Eurocentric concepts, notions such as the
Caliphate could point to alternative ways of thinking about world
order, without the need to translate this into the establishment of a
global “Islamic state” or “Islamic world government”’.3
  The love affair between the Caliphate and jurists is as historically
far-reaching as the institution itself. Right until its fall, al-Afghani
worked relentlessly to redeem Sultan Abdulhamid II’s Caliphate. In its
afterlife it channelled strong nationalist currents, such as the Indian
Khilafat Movement. Even the al-Azhar Islamic Caliphate Congress of
1926 forewent two important legal preconditions for appointing a
caliph: Quraysh descent and possession of the Haramayn. The Congress
appeared willing to accept any capable caliph. From the fall and the
subsequent aspirations of Abul-‘Ala al-Mawdudi, to contrarian liberal
imperialist British views such as those of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt,4 a
series of diplomatic attempts failed to reincarnate the Caliphate.
  On 9 June 2015, before Army Day, the ninety-ninth anniversary of
 

the Arab Revolt, a newly designed ‘Hashemite’ crimson standard was

presented by the Jordanian king. The flag was inspired by an original
500-year-old banner and decorated in Islamically styled calligraphy. It
aimed to recast a new Jordanian narrative, in terms of a world-wide
Muslim community.5

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 CONCLUSION
  The Hashemites, since 1514 and Sharif Abu Numay in Makkah,6
however, will find no support to re-establish grander designs or a wider
narrative. The Hashemites may seemingly project a powerful story—an
elemental convergence between the Quraysh doctrine and a Hashemite
proclamation. The Sunni doctrinal requirement that the office of caliph
can only be filled by a member of the Quraysh and the (Twelver) Shi’ite
requirement that the Imam should be from the ahl al-bayt (the family
of the Prophet) may somehow converge. But, like the banner, it will
only flutter, and be an open target for political scepticism even without
neo-medievalism.
  There are considerable challenges confronting a re-imagination of
narratives for the collectivity, be it unification à la Sanhuri through
transnational Shari’a application, a civilizational renaissance, or an inter-
national organization such as the OIC. The first suffers from the pitfalls
 

of nationalism, authoritarian rule, and a lack of appreciation for the rule

of law in general. The latter is challenged by the organization of fifty-
seven member states and the reality of belonging to the faltering socio-
economically ‘developing’ South. Furthermore, Islamic solidarity is left
confronting a massive backlash of Islamophobia. The regional experi-
ences of other organizations, starting with the 1943 Arab Union through
the League of Arab States to the GCC June–Ramadan crises in 2017, has
encountered failure after failure. Foreign meddling, political bigotry,
egotism, and intrigue dominated such attempts, ignoring the seminal
necessity for peace and economic prosperity. In fact, foreign interfering,
political prejudice, self-centredness, and intrigue have worked to under-
mine attempts to bring about true working unions in the region—at the
expense of peace and economic prosperity.
  In contrast to differing opinions regarding the Caliphate, maqasid
centrists, jurists and Islamic thinkers, revivalists and Shi’a, have come
to realize the importance of a new regional reality, capturing ‘God’s
Gift’ or the ‘undeserved wealth’. The Grand Imam opted to focus on
the unity of Muslims as the ultimate goal of al-Azhar al-Sharif, since its
inception, and expansion, more than a thousand years ago. With much
conviction, he stated:
I would like to point out, that despite the ingredients of unity that God
has bestowed on our nation, including language, kind, race, religion,
history and geography, and in spite of our Arab League and the

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 THE HIJAZ
Organization of Islamic Cooperation, established more than half a cen-
tury ago, we still lack a union, like that of the European Union. This is
not impossible; it requires only the sincerity of intentions and a vision,
in addition to excluding internal differences. Arabs no doubt are quali-
fied to make such a union if they want to.7
  There is a ‘generational inequity’ legal question at the heart of the
Arab collective narrative. The Saudi call for an Arab Gulf union is close
to the unification achieved by King Abdulaziz in the Arabian Peninsula,
which is the only enduring union today. King Faisal ibn Abdulaziz was
the first effective ruler of The Hijaz since the 1925 annexation. As his
father’s deputy, he understood its value and Islamic potency. King Faisal
developed and recast Islamic diplomacy until his death in 1975. He
instigated the OIC, set it up in Jeddah, and, despite his maternal
Wahhabi lineage, knew how to curb extremism. He utilized oil wealth
to his advantage, and surrounded himself with technocrats. His sons,
two born in Makkah, and one—like his father before him—governor
of Makkah, are committed to that viewpoint, and deeply aware of the
limitations of foreign intervention and a centralized government sys-
tem in Riyadh lacking state-connectedness.
  The challenges to the Saudi state from both internal and neighbouring
militant ideologies are chilling, to say the least. Also, the state still lacks
the full operation of the rule of law. Despite Western scrutiny over
Shari’a, there is no apology needed in adopting the rule of law. In a series
of positive attempts to counter the pressing challenges, King Salman ibn
Abdulaziz advanced wide reform, underpinned by a transition to the
third generation of Saudi princes, a firm, offensive foreign policy, and a
series of steps towards ground-breaking socio-economic and security
policies. The constitutional revolution of June 2017 brought the appoint-
ment of a charismatic and youthful crown prince, Mohammad ibn
Salman, and indeed marked the birth of the ‘fourth Saudi state’. Like his
grandfather, he will no doubt continue to wrestle with the very idea of a
social contract with Islam—a Vision 2030 for Islam.
  Nonetheless, there is a serious role for the fourth Saudi state, to
move forward as a state, and to carry the Middle East along with it. The
Saudi government has made bold new efforts towards regional coop-
eration in the fight against Faith Militant groups. On 15 December  

2015 Mohammad ibn Salman, as the Saudi minister of defence,

380
 CONCLUSION
announced a regional alliance of thirty-four mainly Islamic states, coor-
dinating to fight terrorism.8 Nevertheless, the alliance was welcomed
by US defence secretary Ash Carter,9 and generated international inter-
est, as it is the first such regional anti-terrorism effort led by a Sunni
Muslim state in a fight against Sunni militant groups such as DA’ISH.10
It is interesting to note the convening (soft) power of The Hijaz which
was utilized in 2017, as it brought together the leaders of fifty-five
countries to meet with the new and rather Islamophobic US president,
Donald Trump, in Saudi Arabia. It was not under the OIC, the Arab
League, or the GCC that these powerful actors came; it was the sum-
moning power of Islam’s Holiest Sites. This unique power was recog-
nized by the US president in his keynote address: ‘I chose to make my
first foreign visit a trip to the heart of the Muslim world, to the nation
that serves as custodian of the two holiest sites in the Islamic Faith.’11

Finding the Lost Space

We have explored, throughout several sections of this book, the con-
cept of the auspicious positive space within the religious–ideational
and, in a way, political, spheres; and, its dark alternative, the negative
space, with its dim, austere, intolerant, and, all too often, violent and
destabilizing extensions. We delved particularly deep in this notion in
Chapter 8, to highlight how, historically, the negative space, as under-
pinned by the various expressions of the Faith Militant over time in the
Middle East (and beyond), has caused great pain, suffering, and grief.
Through this analysis, it became clear that intolerant ideo-religious
visions, dogmas, and worldviews make up or directly fuel the negative
space and regress civilizational merits, providing the wellspring for
extremists and violent exponents of the Faith Militant doctrine. We
deconstructed and traced the ideological trail behind these expressions
of the negative space, highlighting the impact of austere theo-ideolog-
ical interpretations, from early Wahhabism and the role of militant
Wahhabi-affiliated groups, to the variations of the jihadi Salafi strands,
and the postmodern and neo-medieval expressions—as embodied by
al-Qaida and DA’ISH respectively.
  We also showed how the manifestations of the negative space and
the Faith Militant surface, evolve, appear to wane, and often re-surface

381
 THE HIJAZ
forcefully in different versions and styles. We made reference to the
1979 siege of Makkah by militant Wahhabis, their use of symbols, reli-
gious metaphors, and attempts to benefit from The Hijaz’s unique
power. We then delved deeper into this very dangerous, diachronic
appeal of the idea of ‘capturing the Holy Lands’ for fanatics and
extremists—including DA’ISH in the 2010s, with its forcible bid for
statehood and the re-establishment of a sweeping Caliphate. At the end
of June 2017 another very sad incident unfolded in the Holy Lands,
hours before the end of Ramadan and the start of Eid, with a suicide
attacker causing serious destruction and injuries outside Makkah’s
Grand Mosque.
  We also discussed, however, the vital importance and potential of the
positive space: how its much-needed rejuvenation passes through The
Hijaz, highlighting its integrative power, its peace-promotion potential,
and its capacity to facilitate conflict prevention and resolution. Also,
through the mapping of the various antagonisms, sectarian tensions,
conflicts, and the complex web of the combatants in the region’s ongo-
ing wars, we highlighted the distinct soft power of The Hijaz as the most
legitimate forum to bring these groups and actors together, to heal, to
overcome their differences, reach new understandings, encourage radi-
cals to embrace more moderate views, ‘disarm’ the extremists, and
assist in the peace efforts. For instance, we discussed how with the help
of The Hijaz, proactive steps could facilitate the separation of former
Ba’ath Party officials from DA’ISH. With the help of the ‘guiding power’
 

of the Holy Lands, other actors could also be encouraged to exit from
the negative spiral of radicalism and extremism. It is a role that The
Hijaz has fulfilled historically.Yet, as we discussed, the fall of The Hijaz
was followed by the advent of Wahhabism, with the negative space effec-
tively shifting the balance in Arabia and in other areas of the region. It is
quintessential that, in these critical times for the greater Middle East,
and for Islam, the (im)balance of the past decades is reversed. There is a
dire need for greater dialogue, starting with the ‘institution’ of the
Grand Mosque, tolerance, openness, moderation, harmony, new under-
standings, and lasting peace. As argued throughout the later sections of
this book, only The Hijaz, with the crucial cogency of Saudi Arabia, can
help restore the balance, re-establishing the nucleus of the positive space
in Makkah, at the very heart of Islam.

382
 CONCLUSION
  If one takes a broad look at the Middle East—its geography, its
resources, its potential, the space for cooperation and synergies, the
natural alliances that should occur in this relatively small part of the
world—one might ponder at this image of fragility and perpetual tur-
moil. Moreover, crucially, on a closer examination, one finds that the
‘golden moments’ of the region seem to be associated with a prosper-
ous Hijaz and a strong constructive Islam—times when The Hijaz and
Islam are enjoying auspicious peaks—rapidly fuelling and expanding
the positive space and simultaneously closing down the room for the
negative space. In other words, no civilization should destroy itself by
its own hands; the positive and negative space appear to have an ‘inverse
correlation’. The more the positive space advances, expands, pro-
gresses, and advantageously evolves, the more it eliminates the space
for the growth—if not very existence—of the negative space. To fur-
ther attempt to ‘bring it home’, the more absolutist Wahhabi thinking
expands in the region and roots itself deeply within societies, the less
space it leaves for the positive progress and evolution of moderate,
open, tolerant, and inclusive Islam. Reversely, the more moderate
forces prevail, the greater the marginalization of the extremists, the
radicals—all the agents and advocates of the negative space. Initial
steps are already being paved into the evolving fourth Saudi state, with
rapid and aggressive reforms not previously seen in its history taking
place instantly; from the rights of women to drive within the king-
dom,12 to challenges made to the religious establishment, especially in
the form of tackling extremism by vetting religious teachings, particu-
larly misconstrued sayings of the Prophet Mohammad (Hadiths), the
jurisprudential pillar of the Hanbali school, through the creation of an
international Repository of Hadith in Medina.13 This signals the start of
a self-transformation from Wahhabi or Salafi doctrine to a more juris-
prudential and international approach to the state’s official Islam, a step
that comes with great risk to the ruling establishment. Its seemingly
genuine concern over terrorism has led the state to challenge interpre-
tations traditionally closed off for scrutiny by Wahhabi scholars, and is
coming to the realization that extremism is not only a domestic threat,
but one that threatens the fabric of the Islamic world and its relations
with the West, and that it will indeed be ‘wasted time’ if they do not
work to ‘eradicate extremism’, as the crown prince remarked.14

383
 THE HIJAZ
  The Hijaz can therefore not only be a cultural or economic hub;
rather, it must be a protected gatekeeper, the fountainhead of the positive
space, paving the way, steadily shifting the balance and the momentum in
favour of the positive space. This will allow it to fulfil once again its key
functions as the intra-Islam crisis-prevention, tension-defusion, and
conflict-prevention centre. The Hijaz will (re-)emerge as the ‘number to
call’, the ‘address to go to’, the epicentre of ideo-religious dialogue and
exchange. In a way, The Hijaz should be given agency as the supreme
forum for dialogue within Islam, facilitating ideational exchange and
convergence; but also as a fundamental source of guidance, knowledge,
jurisprudence, and harmony—internal and external.

Inclusive Statehood
Chris Thornhill has argued that ‘in differentiated societies political
power tends, over longer periods of time, to be constructed and
applied in increasingly conventionalised fashion, and the wider
abstracted specialisation of power on a select number of exchanges
means that power evolves as a facility that is only rarely applied as
coercion’.15 In other words, modern societies generate power in ways
that tend towards social inclusion rather than exclusion:
They are defined—in the first instance—by the fact that they require
and produce, not autonomous political institutions, but rather autono-
mous reserves of political power: that is, the evolution of modern
societies has depended on the capacities of these societies for generat-
ing quantities of political power that could be applied across complexly
differentiated social terrains in reasonably positive, independent and
easily inclusive and reproducible fashion, and whose utilization was not
subject to endless local coercion or personalized controversy.16
  Modern history has demonstrated that Hijazis, Arabs, and Muslims
have, more often than not, been victims of international law. But there
is an opportunity, and compelling arguments, to harness the same laws
to assert their new-found worldview. Saudi Arabia remains the custo-
dian of the Two Holy Mosques. Its centralized non-popular system of
government imposes serious challenges for further progress on many
fronts. The Hijaz is important to Hijazis and Muslims, but other com-
munities may also benefit from its reform, including the Shi’a in the

384
 CONCLUSION
eastern region of Saudi Arabia, and all communities in search of bal-
ance and peace.
  Scotland, like The Hijaz, was once a self-governing state that lost its
statehood—among many other such global examples. But Scotland
gave up its statehood more or less voluntarily, surrendering statehood
on terms that were contained in the Treaty of Union. This has, accord-
ingly, been regarded as a foundational, constitutional document in
Scotland—a view not held, or at least not strongly held, in the rest of
the UK. Moreover, the Treaty of Union has been since renegotiated.
 

Finally, Scotland always formed a distinct legal unit within the UK,
which has not been the case with The Hijaz in Saudi Arabia. When the
Scottish National Party campaigned for Scottish independence, it could
rely on there being functioning Scottish institutions which would pro-
vide the basis of an independent state, despite running into some dif-
ficulties over such matters as currency and military protection. The
2014 independence referendum was a remarkably polite, democratic
affair. By contrast, the lost statehood of The Hijaz is historically inter-
twined with military force and oppression. The idea, in the Scottish
case, was to move towards independence through, rather than outside,
normal constitutional and political processes of the state from which
Scotland was to secede.
  Constitutional processes, including referenda, are a characteristic
component of Quebec’s campaign to separate from Canada. Like
Scotland, Quebec has its own (civilian) legal system and, as a province
in a federal state, a significant degree of self-government already.
Unlike Scotland, however, there is considerable doubt as to whether
Quebec can be considered a ‘nation’, as, historically, it was a French
colony rather than a location where a people forged a distinct identity.
This perhaps relates more strongly with the Hijazi case.
  Will statehood mean what it means today twenty years from now?
After all, is Westphalia still the model to aspire to? A repeat of 1648 is
not conceivable today; but a Middle East intensely ridden with conflict
is in dire need of novel dispute-resolution mechanisms of Westphalian
inspiration. Muslims seem to be drawn to a moral collectivity rather
than the nation-state, whereas Europeans find the EU more uncomfort-
able than the nation. The reality is that there will probably be ‘variable
geometry’ dimensions to these central international relations ques-

385
 THE HIJAZ
tions. The idea that the nation-state, the idea of statehood, as it has been
defined and experienced, is crushed both by the governing dynamics of
international order and by the forces of ‘self-determination’.
  In response to these challenges, and their particular manifestations
in the Middle Eastern context, we sketched out the outline of a new
regional integration policy. Assessing the successes and shortcomings
of earlier initiatives, from the LAS to the GCC, we highlighted that,
potentially, regional integration might be best served through a ‘looser
platform’, with The Hijaz, Saudi Arabia, and the GCC at its core. We
analysed the potential of an APEC-like structure, which would allow
the states to consolidate dynamically and asymmetrically—through
their converging interests in economics and finance, energy, and trade,
but also defence and security. In this process, we highlighted the inte-
grating and convening power of The Hijaz and the significant room for
Saudi Arabian agency and leadership, as well as the contribution such a
body could make to Islamic security, stability, and prosperity. We
reached the conclusion that such an arrangement could steadily
expand, to build bridges with other international organizations, as well
as important states outside the strict regional confines, from the USA
and the UK to Iran and, even possibly, Israel.
  In tracing the different experiences of statehood—in The Hijaz, the
Arabian Peninsula, and the greater Middle East—we found that, even
in the most secular experiences of statehood, with very few excep-
tions, Islam was present, in different expressions and on different lev-
els. We also studied how, in some cases, where the forces of seculariza-
tion, Westernization, and modernization were imposed top-down, too
fast and too abruptly, Islam came back with a vengeance—in the differ-
ent waves of Islamic revivalism and revolution, both Sunni and Shi’ite,
which culminated in the 1970s. Moreover, through this journey
through statehood and socio-political and ideo-religious evolution, we
also discussed how the imagined community of family and religious ties
generally proved stronger than national ones, given the consecutive
failures of the reigning elites to advance inclusive bottom-up social,
political, and economic progress. This issue has had key implications in
several of the countries we analysed. For instance, it helped sow the
seeds of tribal and family allegiance in Iraq and Libya, which in turn has
helped to shape the current militias and jihadi groupings. If stronger

386
 CONCLUSION
national governments with a wider support base had prevailed in these
Middle East states, perhaps violent internecine conflict could have been
avoided. By extension, as discussed in Chapter 9, steps towards more
inclusive models of governance, with more democratic, equitable, and
just representation for the citizens will greatly contribute to progress,
peace, and prosperity. The Hijaz, in a more autonomous, transnational
form, enjoying greater self-government in the domestic realm, electing
its own local–regional administrative representatives, could be a source
of inspiration and guidance in this sphere too: as the ‘re-constituted’
pristine ‘Islamic state’, at the heart of a rapidly growing, economically
advanced, and progressing Saudi Arabia, and a beacon for inspiration
on the path to more inclusive statehood, Islamic governance, and equi-
table and sustainable socio-economic progress.
  The presentation of The Hijaz as a common heritage must not be
regarded by the Saudi government as something controversial or dan-
gerous, but rather as something empowering—enhancing. We must not
forget that lasting monarchies have all had to engage in difficult consti-
tutional conversations. It should rather be viewed as an opportunity to
better define The Hijaz, taking into account internal reforms in Saudi
Arabia and the evolution of international law, to support variations in
organizations and institutions, and to guarantee the rights of individuals
while accepting different worldviews.
  At a time when Saudi Arabia is seeing one man wielding more power
than any king since the time of the country’s founder, there is a chance
to achieve ground-breaking transformation. The boldness and determi-
nation that King Salman offers, and the Weberian charismatic leader-
ship of his son, Crown Prince Mohammad, might just be what the
fourth Saudi state needs for the opening up of The Hijaz to flourish.
Some go as far as suggesting that the latter will bring peace in the
Middle East. In a move not unlike the Safavid Shah ‘Abbas I’s creation
of his capital, Isfahan, it is no surprise that the crown prince chose the
northern Hijaz to establish his new mega-city. Furthermore, the poli-
cies of the crown prince towards neighbouring states are attracting
global scrutiny; this may be a drawback to investing so much authority
in a young man over the heads of several ageing relatives—arguably
even to the extent of staging a coup in all but name—in one of the last
remaining absolute monarchies. The difference between rule of law and
rule by law is small to the mighty.

387
 THE HIJAZ
  This opportunity to conclusively establish The Hijaz within the con-
text of a contemporary framework of self-determination must be
accompanied by a right to enjoy some form of democratic governance;
a democratic entitlement, which is realized in ‘Free Expression and
Electoral Rights’, as argued by Franck.17 However, that is not to say that
Franck’s notions of democratic entitlement automatically mean that it
can be only achieved by regime change. Every country, every people, of
every faith have a right to choose their own form of government and
representation. Deliberative democracy, an advanced form of political
deliberation on certain bases, conditions, institutions, or rights of veto,
can be pursued within a wide variety of political structures.18
  One way of achieving an Islamic state, rightfully embodied by The
Hijaz, is via a transitional progression toward a constitutional monar-
chy not dissimilar to the one that The Hijaz National Party contem-
plated over ninety years ago, one that was embraced by King Abdulaziz
ibn Saud himself. Such a Saudi social contract, if enacted tomorrow,
would give the moral and physical centre of Islam the kind of demo-
cratic government that the Arab world is lacking today, and would
create the political stability needed: advocating for the rule of law and
democracy, inspired by the greater teaching of Islamic governance, but
not puritanically applying one form or another, and establishing consti-
tutional representative rule is indeed that golden-age ideal. Allowing
for wider interaction with other schools and types of faith within Islam
and the rest of the world and according The Hijaz a special agency in
international law will guarantee it as a trust for mankind. The territo-
rial centrality of Hijazi pilgrimage for all Muslims, as a common heri-
tage, clearly deserves international protection and cooperation. Not
only would it enjoy its traditional place in history, but it will create a
common place for other nations and faith to interact with Islam—to
understand it.
  This book has sought to advance a comprehensive study of the fun-
damental need to fully restore the authority of the Two Holy Mosques
to better advance and fulfil a number of key functions: from education
and knowledge, to peace promotion, the expansion of positive space,
assistance with the diffusion of ideo-religious tensions, anti-radicaliza-
tion, counter-terrorism, and the expansion of religious dialogue glob-
ally through—among others—the upgrading of the international

388
 CONCLUSION
representation of Islam within the leading international organizations
and fora. During the Prophet Mohammad’s early days of persecution
by tribal leaders for spreading the peaceful message of Islam, many
were encouraged to leave The Hijaz and travel as far as Africa to seek
refuge. The Prophet found his sanctuary within Makkah and finally
within Medina, where he was urged to settle. The spirit in which he
made his life within The Hijaz, and cultivated the socio-political climate
of the region, is perhaps the quintessential spirit of The Hijaz, and
certainly one that can be revived, with the international community
recognizing its everlasting significance.
  Ultimately, be it an international, constitutional, or Islamic legal
(maqasid) norm, all signs regarding the difficult question of self-deter-
mination appear to be firmly set on a popular trajectory. The famed
international jurist of Syrian origin, Ghassan al-Jundi, poetically
observed that ‘the right of self-determination is open and continuous
as an Arabian caravan heading diligently and with rigour towards Sana’a
however long the journey may be.’19
* * *

389
 EPILOGUE

God, right after creation, said to the angels, ‘Indeed, I will make upon
earth a khalifa.’1 They said, ‘Will You place upon it one who causes
corruption therein and sheds blood, while we exalt You with praise and
declare Your perfection?’ He said, ‘I know what you do not know.’2
  In shame and out of fear, the angels assembled and began their
repentance for questioning the Creator, around his Throne they held
and pleaded until mercy was bestowed upon them; a Sanctuary in the
Heavens was created beneath the Throne so they may continue their
circumambulations. They then descended to earth, to build the parallel
Sanctuary, the first of its kind for humans, in Baca (Makkah).
  After Adam was created, and after he descended to earth, he too
performed tawaf (circumambulation) in the Ancient Sanctuary. It is said
that Hava (Eve) is buried in Jeddah (grandmother), the port city west
of the barrier mountain range of The Hijaz of Arabia. The Ancient
Sanctuary was flooded after Noah. And as Genesis tells us,3 Abraham
left Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness of Paron, in the valley of Baca4
next to the Sanctified House. Abraham returned to his adult son
Ishmael to fulfil God’s command to erect the Sanctuary again, the
Ka’ba, so that humans (the caliphs) can continue to glorify God
through the anti-clockwise tawaf, pilgrims continue to flock in from
every direction, and the prayers may perpetually be directed toward
that one single location, at 21° 25′ 21′′ N, 39° 49′ 34.25′′ E, in the
western part of the Arabian Peninsula. Ishmael’s descendants, the
Quraysh tribe, maintained the sanctity of the House and provided an
enterprise of trade relations across empires and the Prophet

391
 THE HIJAZ
Mohammad of Quraysh’s Bani Hashem (Hashemite), Emir of Makkah
or Prince of Hijaz,5 began the venture of Islam in The Hijaz and after
his death it spread out from it.
  But the angels would continue to repent, having questioned the
existence of God’s Caliph, who continues to shed blood and corrupts
his guardianship.
  The Hijaz will remain as it always was, a House of God, as the angels
continue their counter-clockwise movement, as though to hold time
back, so will many souls head and pivot towards a single point.
However we define society, government, and territory, this motion will
continue. In this context, moving in circles is necessary. In the realm of
war and peace, however, moving ahead is the only way—that is, until
He reclaims guardianship over the earth and whatever is on it.

392
 pp. [xxi–9]

NOTES

PREFACE
1. Sharif is a traditional Arab title, usually reserved for descendants of
Hasan ibn ‘Ali, the first grandson of the Prophet Mohammad. It is
appropriately translated as ‘noble’ or ‘highborn’. In the Hijazi context,
the title was given to the Sharif of Makkah (and Medina, collectively
referred to as the haramayn: the Two Holy Cities).
2. There are documents on this in al-Azhar, along with Muhammad Husayn
Nasif’s well-known Tarikh al-Hijaz [The history of The Hijaz], Jeddah:
Dar al-Hikma, 1928, p. 145.
3. Disclaimer: This book is an academic effort, and does not represent or
promote the political views of any state, government, or political, reli-
gious, or sectarian movement or party.
4. Covenant of the League of Nations, Article 11, available at http://ava-
lon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp#art11, last accessed 31 March
 

2017.

INTRODUCTION
1. See the full text at Muhammed Hamid-Allah, Majmu‘at al-Watha’iq al-
Siyasya li’l-‘Ahd al-Nabawi wa al-Khilafa al-Rashida [Collection of politi-
cal documents of the Prophetic and Rightly Guided Caliphate era], 4th
edn, Beirut: Dar al-Nfa’is, 1983, pp. 59–62.
2. A poll of American opinion carried out by the Zogby organization in
2014 found that 27 per cent of those questioned had a favourable opin-
   

ion of Muslims and 32 per cent had a favourable attitude towards Arabs.
   

See http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/29/us-usa-muslims-
poll-idUSKBN0FY1ZR20140729
3. The Arab Human Development Report, produced by the United

393
pp. [10–16] Notes
 Nations as long ago as 2002, clearly documented the socio-economic
forces that would produce them.
4. Brendan Simms, Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 1453 to the Present
Day, London: Allen Lane/Penguin, 2013; a Westphalia for the Middle
East project, Forum on Geopolitics, Department of Politics and
International Studies, University of Cambridge.
5. Tom Bingham, The Rule of Law, London: Penguin, 2011, pp. 131–59.
6. Ibid., p.  129.
7. Edward Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine
How we See the Rest of the World, London: Random House, 1997,
pp. 45–6.
8. Ibid., pp.  46–7.
9. Ibid., p.  47.
10. Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of
International Law 1870–1960, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2001.
11. See Shiraz Maher, Salafi Jihadism: The History of an Idea, London: Hurst,
 

2016.
12. See also Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Islamophobia: From Confrontation to
Cooperation, the Task Ahead, Jeddah: IRCICA/Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation, 2013.
13. ‘Liberty isn’t a fruit of every climate, so it isn’t within the reach of
every people. The more you think about this principle that
Montesquieu laid down, the more you feel its truth; and the more
you fight it, the more evidence you find in its favour’: Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, The Social Contract, available at http://www.earlymodern-
texts.com/assets/pdfs/rousseau1762book3.pdf, last accessed 3 April  

2017.
14. Mohamed S. al-Awwa, Fi al-Nizam al-Siyasi li’l-Dawla al-Islamiyya [On
 

the political system of the Islamic state], 10th edn, Cairo: Dar al-
Shuruq, 2012, p. 118.
15. Legally, the Caliphate is two constitutional democratic principles: (1)
the nomination of an eligible candidate through the process of shura
(consultation) among Muslims; and (2) the appointment of this can-
didate, executed through the bay‘a (pledge) by Muslims. The reason
for the misapprehension is the aura that surrounds the first four
Caliphates. These were the Rashidun, the Rightly Guided Caliphs: Abu
Bakr, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, ‘Uthman ibn Affan, and ‘Ali. All of these
men are celebrated in the tradition for their ability to govern well,
for which the master virtue was a sense of justice, coupled with the
administrative and military ability to maintain the Arab empire’s rate
of expansion. The four were retrospectively called the al-khilafa al-

394
 notes pp. [17–27]
rashida, underlining their ethical ‘goodness’. Today, in keeping with
fashionable reform policy jargon, the term ‘good governance’ is often
used and is translated as al-hukm al-rashid. The term was well deserved:
the early Caliphate system had a comprehensive, constitutional gover-
nance structure, an elected parliament, equal access to justice, and
codified laws: majallat al-ahkam al-sultaniyya. Arguably this was a more
highly developed system of institutions than many Muslims enjoy in
the twenty-first century. See ibid., p. 24, and al-Awwa, Fi al-Nizam al-
Siyasi li’l-Dawla al-Islamiyya, p. 21.
16. Formerly, the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
17. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, The Islamic World in the New Century: The
Organisation of the Islamic Conference 1969–2009, London: Hurst, 2009.
18. See James Brucek, ‘The Controversy of Shaykh ‘Ali ‘Abd Al-Raziq’,
Ph.D. thesis, Florida State University, Florida State University
 

Libraries, 2010, available at http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/

object/fsu:183227/datastream/PDF/view, last accessed 19 March  

2017.
19. He argued that Abdel Raziq had confused two things: (1) the exis-
tence of the Caliphate; and (2) the selection of the caliphs. Abdalrazzak
al-Sanhuri, Fiqh al-Khilafa wa-Tatawwuruha li Tusbih ‘Usbat Umam
Sharqiyya [The jurisprudence of the Caliphate and its evolution into
an Oriental league of nations], Beirut: Manshurat al-Halabi al-Huquq-
iyya, 2008.
20. Contribution at al-Azhar conference on Confronting Extremism and
Terrorism held on 4 December 2014. See Ahmad al-Tayyib, al-Azhar
 

fi Muwajahat al-Fikr al-Irhabi: Min A‘mal Mu’tamar al-Azhar al-‘Alami li-

Muwajahat al-Tatarruf wa-al-Irhab [Selected papers from the al-Azhar
Conference on Confronting Terrorism and Extremism: Cairo (11–12)
Safar, 1436, AH (3–4) December 2014], Cairo: Mashyakat al-Azhar al-
Sharif wa Dar al-Quds al-‘Arabi, 2015.
21. For context and a dynamic discussion on succession in the KSA see
Karen Elliot House, On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault
Lines—and Future, New York: Vintage Books, 2013, pp. 209–18.
22. Ibid., p.  219.
23. Abu Bakr Naji, Idarat al-Tawahus [Management of savagery], n.p.: Dar
al-Tamrud, 2004 (a compilation of strategic letters since 9/11/2001).
24. Clive Leatherdale, Britain and Saudi Arabia 1925–1939, London: Frank
Cass, 1983.
25. Askar H. al-Enazy, The Creation of Saudi Arabia: Ibn Saud and British
 

Imperial Policy, 1914–1927, London: Routledge, 2010.

26. William Ochsenwald, Religion, Society and the State in Arabia: The Hijaz
under Ottoman Control, 1840–1908, Columbus: Ohio State University
Press, 1984.

395
pp. [28–34] Notes
27. William Ochsenwald, ‘The Annexation of The Hijaz’, in Mohammed
Ayoob and Hasan Kosebalaban (eds.), Religion and Politics in Saudi
Arabia: Wahhabism and the State, Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers,
2009, pp. 75–90.
28. Polly A. Mohs, Military Intelligence and the Arab Revolt: The First Modern
 

Intelligence War, Studies in Intelligence, London: Routledge, 2008.

29. See ibid., pp. 159–61, for example.
30. Bruce Westrate, The Arab Bureau: British Policy in the Middle East 1916–
1920, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992.
31. Timothy J. Paris, Britain, the Hashemites and Arab Rule 1920–1925: The
 

Sherifian Solution, Abingdon: Routledge, 2003.

32. Madawi Al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010.
33. Joshua Teitelbaum, The Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia,
New York: New York University Press, 2001. The book is based on his
Ph.D. thesis, ‘The Hashemite Kingdom of The Hijaz, 1916–1925: A
 

Failure of State Formation in Modern Arabia’, Tel Aviv University,

1996.
34. Joseph Kostiner, The Making of Saudi Arabia, 1916–1936: From Chieftaincy
to Monarchical State, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
35. Randall Baker, King Hussein and the Kingdom of Hejaz, Cambridge:
Oleander Press, 1979.
36. David Howarth, The Desert King: A Life of Ibn Saud, London: Collins,
1964.
37. Gary Troeller, The Birth of Saudi Arabia: Britain and the Rise of the House
of Sa’ud, London: Routledge, 2015.
38. Martin Kramer, Islam Assembled: The Advent of the Muslim Congress, New
York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
39. Ernest Dawn, From Ottomanism to Arabism: Essays on the Origins of Arab
Nationalism Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973; Ernest Dawn,
‘The Amir of Mecca al-Husayn Ibn Ali and the Origin of the Arab
Revolt’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 104, 1 (1960),
pp. 11–34; Ernest Dawn, ‘The Formation of Pan-Arab Ideology in the
Interwar Years’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 20, 1 (1988),
pp. 67–91.

1. IDEALIZED STATEHOOD
1. David J. Bederman, International Law in Antiquity, Cambridge Studies in
 

International and Comparative Law 16, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2001.
2. Ibid.

396
 notes pp. [34–37]
3. Christopher Morris, An Essay on the Modern State, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998.
4. Max Weber, Theory of Social and Economic Organization, New York: Free
Press, 1997, p. 54.
5. Erika Cudworth et al., The Modern State: Theories and Ideologies,
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007, p. 1.
6. Clyde Barrow, Critical Theories of the State: Marxist, Neomarxist, Postmarxist,
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993, p. 10.
7. Ibid.
8. The analysis of a cultural phenomenon from the perspective of the
participant in the culture being studied.
9. The analysis of a cultural phenomenon from the perspective of one
who is not a participant in the culture being studied.
10. Qur’an 106: Quraysh.
11. Ahmad Ahmad, The Living Quraysh, Santa Barbara: University of
California Press, 2008.
12. References to ‘the Prophet’ in this text refer to the Prophet
Mohammad.
13. Ibrahim Beydoun, al-Hijaz wa’l-Dawla al-Islamiyya [The Hijaz and the
Islamic state], Beirut: Dar al-Nahda al-Arabiyya, 1995, pp. 89–90.
14. Muhammed Salim al-Awwa, Fi al-Nizam al-Siyasi li’l-Dawla al-Islami-
yya, 2nd edn, Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2006, p. 43.
15. Ibid., p.  46.
16. In the pre-Islamic period, some Arab tribes used to kill their own chil-
dren, particularly females. Islam came to prohibit such killing; God
having commanded: ‘Hence, do not kill your children for fear of pov-
erty: it is we who shall provide sustenance for them as well as for
you. Verily, killing them is a great sin’ (Qur’an 17:31).
17. See the full text at Ibn Hisham, Tahdhib Sirat Ibn Hisham, ed. ‘Abd al-
Salam Harwn and Mossat al-Ressalh, 4th edn, Beirut: Mu’assasa al-
Risala, 1983, p. 103.
18. ‘Ubada ibn al-Samit was one of the first twelve Medinans who
embraced Islam after meeting the Prophet in the valley of ‘Uqbah; he
died in the year 34 AH (654 CE) in Palestine (at Jerusalem) when he
was seventy-two.
19. Ibn Hisham, Tahdhib Sirat Ibn Hisham, p. 108.
20. There were internal disputes among tribes, which meant that a polit-
ical vacuum and lack of unity, along with the prominent role of Jews
in the city, swung the balance of power in favour of the Prophet and
his followers rather than the Arab natives. See Beydoun, al-Hijaz wa’l-
Dawla al-Islamiyya, p. 115.
21. Ibid.

397
pp. [38–43] Notes
22. The religious law based on the Qur’an and the Sunna that came to
describe and illustrate these Qur’anic verses, explaining what is not
clear, and detailing what is outlined in the Qur’an.
23. The Ansar were the citizens of Medina who helped and supported the
Prophet and the Muhajirun after the latter migrated to Medina.
24. The Muhajirun were the first people who embraced Islam in its early
stage and subsequently migrated with the Prophet from Makkah to
Medina.
25. A group of Jews who lived in Medina.
26. Radwan al-Sayyid, al-Umma wa’l-Jama‘a wa’l-Sulta: Dirasat fi al-Fikr al-
Siyasi al-‘Arabi al-Islami [Nation, group, and authority: studies in Arab-
Islamic political thought], 2nd edn, Beirut: Dar Iqra’, 1986, p. 53.
27. See the full text in Hamid-Allah, Majmu‘at al-Watha’iq al-Siyasa li’l ‘ahd
al-Nabawi wa al-Khilafa al-Rashida, 4th edn, pp. 59–62.
28. See the full Arabic text in ibid., 6th edn, pp. 59–64. See the full
English text of the Constitution in William M. Watt, Islamic Political
 

Thought, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998 [1968],

pp. 130–4.
29. Hamid-Allah, Majmu‘at al-Watha’iq al-Siyasa li’l ‘ahd al-Nabawi wa al-
Khilafa al-Rashida, 6th edn, p. 60.
30. Mohamad Salim al-Awwa is an Egyptian lawyer and Islamic thinker,
considered a representative of the moderate Islamic political trend.
He is the former secretary-general of the International Union for
Muslim Scholars.
31. Al-Awwa, Fi al-Nizam al-Siyasi li’l-Dawla al-Islamiyya, p. 55.
32. Ibid.
33. Article 36 states that ‘none of the state members goes out without
the permission of Mohammad’.
34. Articles 15, 17, 19, 45 and 13, 16, 15, 36, 47. See al-Awwa, Fi al-
Nizam al-Siyasi li’l-Dawla al-Islamiyya, pp. 49–54.
35. M. Mustafawi, Nazariyyat al-Hukm wa al-Dawla: Dirasa Muqarana bayn
 

al-Fiqh al-Islami wa al-Qanun al-Dusturi al-Wad‘i [Theories of gover-

nance and state: comparative studies between Islamic jurisprudence
and international constitutional law], 2nd edn, Beirut: Markaz al-
Hadara li Tanmiyyat al-Fikr al-Islami, 2002, pp. 64–5.
36. Beydoun, al-Hijaz wa’l-Dawla al-Islamiyya, p. 129.
37. In fact, the Prophet’s return to Makkah was an entirely Quraysh dip-
lomatic and political effort to unify The Hijaz, quickly accepted by the
chiefs of Makkah.
38. Al-Awwa, Fi al-Nizam al-Siyasi li’l-Dawla al-Islamiyya, 2nd edn,
pp. 64–5.
39. Ibid., p.  66.

398
 notes pp. [43–46]
40. The definition of ijma‘ is the agreement of the Muslim community,
basically on religious issues, or whatever concerns it. This could be
via jurists and scholars, and there are various opinions on when this
could be recognized as a valid source of legislation.
41. The Ansar stressed their efforts in protecting and supporting the
Prophet in the very early stage of Islam as well as their invitation to
him to immigrate to Medina as confirmation of their right to the
succession.
42. Quraysh, as discussed, were a noble tribe that controlled Makkah. The
Prophet was born into the Banu Hashim clan of the Quraysh tribe. A
person who belongs to the Quraysh tribe is called a ‘Qurayshi’, and
qualifies for the condition that was set by the Prophet.
43. Abu al-Hasan al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya wa’l-Wilayat al-Dini-
yya [The ordinances of government], Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya,
1978, p. 6.
44. Abu Bakr was born in 573 in Mecca and passed away in 634 in
Medina. He was a close companion of the Prophet and the first of the
Rightly Guided Caliphs following the Prophet’s passing in 632.
45. Sunni scholars are in favour of a system of appointment, unlike the
Shi’ite Ithna ‘Asharis, who believe that the Prophet did not name a
direct successor, but that he mentioned twelve possible successors to
follow him: see ‘Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima [The intro-
duction], Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-‘Arabi, n.d., pp. 196–7.
46. The use of this term here may seem anachronistic when applied to
this period. ‘Popular’ seems to imply that ordinary people had a say
in choosing the caliph, which is the case since the delegations repre-
senting the population were chosen to do so. Ahl al-hall wa al-‘aqd
were not just tribal leaders.
47. Al-Awwa, Fi al-Nizam al-Siyasi li’l-Dawla al-Islamiyya, 2nd edn, p. 69.
48. In Europe, the concept of ‘nations’ that emerged in the early modern
period is usually treated as a departure from the idea of Christendom
as a universal religious community. In the introduction I suggested
that there is not really a good English translation of the word umma.
However, the use of the word nation in Arabic during that historical
period was carried over to be the same word we understand today as
‘nation’.
49. For more information about ‘apostasy wars’ at the time of Abu Bakr
see, for instance, Tarikh al-Tabari, Tarikh Ibn al-Athir, Tarikh Ibn Kathir,
and other Islamic history books.
50. Ibrahim ibn Musa ibn Muhammad al-Shatibi al-Gharnati, well known
as Imam al-Shatibi (d. 1388), was an Andalusian Sunni Islamic legal
scholar. He is widely recognized as the father of the objectives of

399
pp. [46–52] Notes
Islamic law. He belonged to the Maliki school of thought. His most
important work is the Muwafawat fi Usul al-Shari‘a, a treatise that con-
tributed immensely to the conception of Islamic law, particularly the
concept of maslaha (benefit or public interest).
51. Ahmad al-Raysuni, Imam al-Shatibi’s Theory of the Higher Objectives and
Intents of Islamic Law, London: International Institute of Islamic
Thought, 2005, p. 255.
52. Ibid., p. 231. This view has been asserted by Imam al-Ghazali: Abu-
Hamid al-Ghazali, al-Mustasfa min ‘Ilm al-Usul [On the legal theory of
Muslim jurisprudence], Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1993, p. 287.
53. This is mubah, one of the five categories of behaviour (ahkam) in
Islamic jurisprudence, denoting an action as neither forbidden nor rec-
ommended, and therefore religiously neutral.
54. The Messenger of God said, ‘Allah, the Exalted, has laid down cer-
tain duties which you should not neglect, and has put certain limits
which you should not transgress, and has kept silent about other mat-
ters out of mercy for you and not out of forgetfulness, so do not seek
to investigate them.’ See al-Daraqutni et al., Riyad as-Salihin [The book
of miscellaneous ahadith of significant value], Book 19, Hadith 25,
available online from: http://sunnah.com/riyadussaliheen/19/25, last
accessed 25 March 2016.
 

55. This was before the Rightly Guided Caliphs were succeeded by royal
authority and monarchies, whose scholars were prepared to legitimize
the authority of those who were in power.
56. During the ninth century some Muslim jurists—and particularly Imam
al-Shafi‘i—regarded the world as being divided into three categories:
(1) the abode of Islam (dar al-islam); (2) the abode of war (dar al-
harb); (3) the abode of truce and treaty (dar al-‘ahd).
57. This was even more so after ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, the seventh
Umayyad caliph, had institutionally differentiated between jizya and
kharaj, which effectively became the main state income, whether it
was paid by Muslims or non-Muslims.
58. Roy Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
59. In classical international law, uti possidetis meant that territory belonged
to the victor after a conflict; but nowadays it tends to mean that pre-
colonial borders are preserved after independence of the colony.

2. INTERNATIONAL ORDER AND THE NATION-STATE

1. A series of European peace settlements signed in 1648 in Osnabruck
and Münster ending the Thirty Years War (1618–48) in the Holy Roman

400
 notes pp. [52–53]
 Empire and the Eighty Years War between Spain and the Dutch
Republic. Under the terms of the peace treaties a number of coun-
tries received territories or were confirmed in their sovereignty over
territories.
2. Richard Falk, ‘Revisiting Westphalia, Discovering Post-Westphalia’,
Journal of Ethics 6, 4 (2012), pp. 311–52, at p. 312.
3. It guaranteed a modicum of religious freedom (within the bounds of
certain Christian denominations) and adjusted clearly defined, cen-
trally controlled, and independent entities. See Howard Richards,
Understanding the Global Economy, Thousand Oaks, CA: PEB Publishing,
2004, p. 45.
4. Jordan Branch, ‘Mapping the Sovereign State: Cartographic Technology,
Political Authority and Systemic Change’, International Organization 65,
1 (2011), pp. 1–36.
5. Ibid.
6. Anderson stresses the impossibility of all members knowing one
another. The main causes of nationalism (none of which are nineteenth
century as such; all date from the sixteenth or seventeenth century)
and the creation of an ‘imagined community’ according to Anderson
are as follows: (1) the reduction of privileged access to script lan-
guages (namely Latin); (2) the movement to abolish ideas of divine
rule and monarchy; and (3) the emergence of the printing press under
the system of capitalism and pre-capitalism. See Benedict Anderson,
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism,
London: Verso, 2006.
7. Gerlachlus Duijzings, Religion and the Politics of Identity in Kosovo, New
York: Columbia University Press, 2000, p. 23.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Generally, statecraft can be defined as ‘the skilful management of state
affairs; statesmanship’ (see the Oxford English Dictionary, 2010, p. 1741).
According to Charles W. Freeman, ‘Statecraft seeks through strategy
 

to magnify the mass, relevance, impact, and irresistibility of power. It

guides the ways the state deploys and applies its power abroad. These
ways embrace the arts of war, espionage, and diplomacy’: Charles
W. Freeman, Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy, Washington, DC:
 

United States Institute of Peace Press, 1997. See also Gabriel Marcella,
‘National Security and the Interagency Process’, in J. Boone  

Bartholomees, Jr. (ed.), US Army War College Guide to National Security

Policy and Strategy, 1st edn, n.p.: United States Army War College,
Strategic Studies Institute, 2004, pp. 39–60.
11. She argues: ‘It is one of the most essential requirements of the state

401
pp. [54–59] Notes
that a person has only one identity; one cannot keep track of people
who are one thing at one point [and] another thing at another [point]’:
Katherine Verdery, National Identity under Socialism: Identity and Cultural
Politics in Ceausescu’s Romania, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1994, p. 37.
12. ‘All believers are but brethren’ (Qur’an 49:10).
13. ‘Verily, [O you who believe in Me,] this community of yours is one
single community, since I am the Sustainer of you all: worship, then,
Me [alone]’ (Qur’an 21:92); see also ‘And, verily, this community of
yours is one single community, since I am the Sustainer of you all:
remain, then, conscious of Me’ (Qur’an 23:52). Furthermore, regard-
ing the universality of the Islamic message God says, ‘And [thus, O
Prophet,] We have sent thee as [an evidence of Our] grace towards all
the worlds’ (Qur’an 21:107).
14. Abdel Raziq ibn Hmam al-Sann’ani, Musannaf Abdel Raziq [Abdel
Raziq’s Musannaf], ed. Abdel Rahman al-‘Azamy, 1st edn, Beirut: al-
Majlis al-‘Ilmi, 1970, 11/ p. 101 (Hadith 20039).
15. God says, ‘If thou hadst expended all that is on earth, thou could not
have brought their hearts together [by thyself]: but God did bring
them together. Verily, He is almighty, wise’ (Qur’an 8:63).
16. God says, ‘And, verily, this [revelation] shall indeed become [a source
of] eminence for thee and thy people: but in time you all will be
called to account [for what you have done with it]’ (Qur’an 43:44).
17. Imam Khomeini, Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist, London:
Alhoda UK, 2002, also available at http://ijtihad.ir/images/
FileUploaded/5796.pdf, last accessed 18 April 2017.
 

18. Professor Zia-Ebrahimi delves deeper into the concept of ‘dislocative

nationalism’ using the Iranian politico-historical experience as a case
study. See Reza Zia-Ebrahimi, The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism: Race
and the Politics of Dislocation, New York: Columbia University Press,
2016.
19. See George Antonius, The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National
Movement, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1938.
20. Sami Zubaida, Islam, the People and the State: Political Ideas and Movements
in the Middle East, 2nd edn, London: I. B. Tauris, 2001, p. 130.
   

21. For a detailed discussion of Zubaida’s analysis of Iran, see below.

22. Zubaida, Islam, the People and the State, p. 131.
23. Ahmad Aftab Khan, ‘Islamic Thought: Revivalists and Reformers’,
Defence Journal 16, 6 (2013), pp. 25–47, available at https://search.
proquest.com/docview/1328923108?accountid=9851, last accessed
3 April 2017.
 

24. Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima, pp. 190–1.

402
 notes pp. [59–62]
25. Saber Taima, al-Usul al-‘Aqadiyya li-al-Imamiyya [The origins of the
imami [Shi’ite] doctrine,] Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, n.d., p. 31.
26. Ervand Abrahamian, Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic, Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1993, p. 15.
27. Sami Zubaida, ‘An Islamic State? The Case of Iran’, Middle East Report
No. 153: Islam and the State (July–August 1988), pp. 3–7.
28. Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1998, p. 78.
29. See, for context, Christoph Marcinkowski, Between Iran and Persia: Islam
and Nationalism in Iran’s Resurgence as a Regional Power, RSIS /
Commentaries / Middle East and North Africa / Religion in
Contemporary Society, 28 September 2006, available at https://www.
 

rsis.edu.sg/rsis-publication/rsis/861-between-iran-and-persia-islam/#.
WOKNVW_yvb0, last accessed 2 April 2017.
 

30. R. J. Vincent, ‘Grotius, Human Rights and Intervention’, in Hedley

   

Bull, Benedict Kingsbury, and Adam Roberts (eds.), Hugo Grotius and
International Relations, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990, p. 241.
31. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, New
York: Columbia University Press, 1977, ch. 2.
32. Hedley Bull, ‘The Importance of Grotius’, in Hedley Bull, Benedict
Kingsbury, and Adam Roberts (eds.), Hugo Grotius and International
Relations, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990, p. 78.
33. Ali Sadiq Abu Haif, al-Qanun al-Dawli al-‘Am, Alexandria: Dar Mansha‘t
al-Ma‘arif, 1972, p. 525.
34. Abu Ja‘far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (838–923), one of the most
famous Muslim scholars, a renowned historian, and a prolific writer.
35. Al-Bayhaqi (944–1066) mentions several treaties, specifically the
Prophet’s treaty with the Christians of Najran: see Abu Bakr al-Bay-
haqi, Dala’il al-Nubuwwa [The signs of prophethood], vol. 5, section
on Najran’s Christians, p. 485.
36. Qur’an 8:61.
37. M. J. al-Tabari, Jami‘a al-Bayyan fi Tafsir al-Qur’an [Collection of state-
   

ments on interpretation of verses of the Qur’an], vol. 5, 4th edn,

Beirut: Dar al-Ma’arifa[0], 1980.
38. ‘Unless it be those [of them] with whom you [O believers] have made
a covenant in the vicinity of the Inviolable House of Worship? [As for
the latter,] so long as they remain true to you, be true to them’
(Qur’an 9:7).
39. Qur’an 9:7.
40. See the full text at Hamid-Allah, Majmu‘at al-Watha’iq al-Siyasa li’l ‘ahd
al-Nabawi wa al-Khilafa al-Rashida, 4th edn, document no. 11, p. 77.
41. Ibid., document no. 30, p. 116.

403
pp. [62–72] Notes
42. Ibid., pp. 159–60 and 266–7.
43. The al-Hudaybiyya treaty was concluded at a critical time, during the
first years of Islam; it was therefore an important event. It was a piv-
otal treaty between the Prophet Muhammad, representing the state of
Medina, and the non-Muslim Quraysh tribe of Makkah in March 628.
The treaty helped diffuse the tension between the two cities, affirmed
a ten-year peace, and allowed the Prophet’s followers to return the
following year in a peaceful pilgrimage.
44. Ibrahim S. Alharbi, Democracy in Islamic and International Law,
 

Bloomington: Author House, 2011, p. 193.

45. Lately, international Arab organizations such as the Arab League have
also been involved in such operations.
46. For more information consult, M. R. Dahlan, The Application of the
   

Objectives of Islamic Law on Public Policy, Beirut: Samo Press, 2017.

47. Abd Razzaq al-Sanhuri, Fiqh al-Khilafa wa Tatawwuruha li-Tusbih ‘Usbat
‘Umam Sharqiyya [The jurisprudence of the Caliphate and its evolution
into an eastern League of Nations], Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risala, 2008.
48. Dahlan, The Application of the Objectives of Islamic Law on Public Policy.
49. ‘Call thou [all mankind] unto thy sustainer’s path with wisdom and
goodly exhortation, and argue with them in the most kindly manner’
(Qur’an 16:125).
50. Abdulrahaman A. Kurdi, The Islamic State: A Study Based on the Islamic
 

Holy Consitution, London: Mansell, 1984.

51. Al-Awwa, Fi al-Nizam al-Siyasi li’l-Dawla al-Islamiyya, p. 6.
52. Traditions, mainly oral, of the Prophet Mohammad, used in
jurisprudence.
53. The reference to the verse and further context can be found in the
epilogue of this book.
54. Al-Awwa, Fi al-Nizam al-Siyasi li’l-Dawla al-Islamiyya, p. 118.
55. Notable examples include Muhammad Imara and al-Sanhuri—to cite
a few.
56. ‘The Abolition of the Caliphate’, The Economist, 1924, available at
http://www.economist.com/node/11829711, last accessed 29 March  

2017.

3. ARAB SELF-DETERMINATION AND THE RISE OF THE MODERN

STATE
1. S. Tufan Buzpinar, ‘The Hijaz, Abdulhamid II and Amir Hussein’s Secret
 

Dealings with the British, 1877–80’, Middle Eastern Studies 33 (1955),

pp. 99–123, at p. 99.
2. Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of

404
 notes pp. [72–75]
  Power in the Ottoman Empire 1876–1909, London: I. B. Tauris, 2004,
   

p. 54.
3. Buzpinar, ‘The Hijaz, Abdulhamid II and Amir Hussein’s Secret Dealings
with the British, 1877–80’, pp. 101–2.
4. William Ochsenwald, ‘Ottoman Subsidies to The Hijaz’, International
Journal of Middle East Studies 6, 3 (1975), pp. 300–7, at p. 301.
5. Ibid., pp.  302–3.
6. A vilayet was a top-level administrative division or province. It was
introduced by the Law of the Vilayets in 1864, and was gradually
implemented in all areas of the Ottoman Empire.
7. Teitelbaum, The Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia, p. 12.
8. The title of the leader of the Sharifate of Makkah, traditional guard-
ian of the Holy Cities, Makkah and Medina, and descendant of the
Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Hasan ibn ‘Ali.
9. The duties of the sharifs were not officially defined. They focused
mainly on tribal and provincial matters, so no formal separation
existed between the authorities of the sharif and the vali. Consequently,
it was personal connections and charisma that determined who would
actually exercise power. See, for context, Buzpinar, ‘The Hijaz,
Abdulhamid II and Amir Hussein’s Secret Dealings with the British,
1877–80’, pp. 102–4.
10. Al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, p. 33.
11. Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains, p. 64.
12. Edmund Wright (ed.), A Dictionary of World History, 2nd edn, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006.
13. The Arab Revolt (1916–18) was an uprising led by Sharif Hussein of
Makkah against the Ottoman Turks with the aim of securing indepen-
dence of Arab territories and the creation of a unified Arab state.
14. Feroz Ahmad, ‘The Young Turk Revolution’, Journal of Contemporary
History 3, 3 (1968), pp. 19–36, at p. 20.
15. Dawn, ‘The Amir of Mecca al-Husayn Ibn Ali and the Origin of the
Arab Revolt’, p. 13.
16. Ibid.
17. Sinan Ma‘ruf Aghlaq, Najd wa’l-Hijaz fi’l-Watha’iq al-‘Uthmaniyya: al-
Ahwal al-Siyasiyya wa’l-Ijtima’iyya fi Najd wa’l-Hijaz Khilal al-Ahd al-
‘Uthmaniyya [Najd and The Hijaz in Ottoman documents: the political
and social conditions in Najd and The Hijaz during the Ottoman era],
London and Beirut: Dar al-Saqi, 2002, pp. 116–18.
18. A principle that defined statehood in modern international law.
19. William Ochsenwald, ‘Ironic Origins: Arab Nationalism in The Hijaz
1882–1914’, in Rashid Khalidi (ed.), The Origins of Arab Nationalism,
New York: Columbia University Press, 1991, p. 190.

405
pp. [75–77] Notes
20. Dawn, ‘The Amir of Mecca al-Husayn Ibn Ali and the Origin of the
Arab Revolt’, p. 17.
21. Joshua Teitelbaum, ‘Sharif Husayn ibn Ali and the Hashemite Vision of
the Post-Ottoman Order: From Chieftaincy to Suzerainty’, Middle
Eastern Studies 34, 1 (1998), pp. 103–22, at p. 107.
22. Dawn, ‘The Amir of Mecca al-Husayn Ibn Ali and the Origin of the
Arab Revolt’, pp. 15–18.
23. Baker, King Hussein and the Kingdom of Hejaz, p. 42.
24. Dawn, ‘The Amir of Mecca al-Husayn Ibn Ali and the Origin of the
Arab Revolt’, p. 18.
25. Ibid., p. 11. See also Leatherdale, Britain and Saudi Arabia 1925–1939,
pp. 16–18; al-Enazy, The Creation of Saudi Arabia, pp. 128–34.
26. Joshua Teitelbaum, ‘“Taking Back” the Caliphate: Sharif Husayn Ibn ‘Ali,
Mustafa Kemal and the Ottoman Caliphate’, Die Welt des Islams 40, 3
(2000), pp. 412–24.
27. Teitelbaum, ‘Sharif Husayn ibn Ali and the Hashemite Vision of the
Post-Ottoman Order’, p. 107.
28. ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi (1855–1902), Muslim thinker born in
Aleppo, author of Umm al-Qura [Mother of Villages (Makkah)] and
Tabai al-Istibdad [The characteristics of tyranny].
29. Eliezer Tauber, ‘Three Approaches, One Idea: Religion and State in
the Thought of ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Najib ‘Azuri and Rashid
Rida’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 21, 2 (1994), p. 193.
30. Mohammad Rashid Rida (1865–1935), Muslim thinker and author
born near Tripoli (in Syria), also involved in political activities against
regime of Sultan Abdulhamid II.
31. Mahmoud Haddad, ‘Arab Religious Nationalism in the Colonial Era:
Rereading Rashid Rida’s Ideas on the Caliphate’, Journal of the American
Oriental Society 117, 2 (1997), pp. 253–77, at p. 269, available at
http://docenti.unimc.it/u1.chelatidirar/teaching/2014/12706/files/
reading-materials/Haddad_Rashid%20Rida%20on%20the%20
Caliphate.pdf
32. Ibid. See also FO 882/15, attached to a note from Storrs to Clayton,
Cairo, 5 December 1915.
 

33. Muhammed Rashid Rida, al-Hijaz wa al-Wahabiyyun [The Hijaz and the

Wahhabis], Cairo: Dar al-Manar, 1925.
34. Ibid., p.  41.
35. Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener (1850–1916) was a British
military leader and statesman; he was appointed Commander-in-Chief
in India in 1902, then became British Agent and Consul of Egypt,
serving there and in the Sudan until 1914, when he was made
Secretary of State for War.

406
 notes pp. [77–80]
36. FO 371/2139/83620 (1914) ‘Turkey (War)’.
37. The McMahon–Hussein correspondence (July 1915–January 1916) was
a series of letters exchanged between Henry McMahon, British High
Commissioner in Egypt, and Hussein ibn ‘Ali, Sharif of Mecca, dur-
ing the First World War, discussing the future status of Arab lands. The
correspondence concluded an Arab alliance with the British against
the Turks, in exchange for British guarantees for an independent Arab
state and its security.
38. McMahon to Hussein, 30 August 1915, available at http://www.jew-
 

ishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/hussmac1.html, last accessed

1 April 2017.
 

39. Aouni Bey Abdul Hadi, ‘The Balfour Declaration’, Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science 164 (1932), pp. 12–21, at p. 14.
40. Steven Wagner, ‘British Intelligence and Arab Nationalism: The Origins
of the Modern Middle East’, paper presented at the inaugural Gingko
Conference, held at the School of Oriental and African Studies,
London, 6–7 December 2014.
 

41. Mary C. Wilson, ‘The Hashemites, the Arab Revolt and Arab

 

Nationalism’, in Rashid Khalidi (ed.), The Origins of Arab Nationalism,

New York: Columbia University Press, 1991, p. 214.
42. Ibid.
43. Wagner, ‘British Intelligence and Arab Nationalism’.
44. FO 371/2486/157740 (1915) ‘Turkey (War)’.
45. Interesting context is provided by Polly Mohs on these dynamics; she
highlights the duality of the calculations of the British and the com-
plex politico-diplomatic calculations and assessments carried out by
the imperial officers and policy makers. She highlights that, to achieve
their aims, the British made a series of ‘rhetorically soaring but highly
ambiguous “promises”’. See Mohs, Military Intelligence and the Arab
Revolt, pp. 17–19; quotation from p. 18.
46. For further context and analysis see the discussion in Troeller, The
Birth of Saudi Arabia, pp. 76–83.
47. Teitelbaum, ‘“Taking Back” the Caliphate’.
48. Gary Troeller, ‘Imam Ibn Saud and Sharif Husain: A Comparison in
Importance in the Early Years of the First World War’ The Historical
Journal 14, 3 (1971), pp. 627–33, at p. 630.
49. David George Hogarth, quoted in Troeller, The Birth of Saudi Arabia,
p. 83.
50. For background and context see the discussion in Westrate, The Arab
Bureau, pp. 143–7. See also Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, A Century of Arab
Politics: From the Arab Revolt to the Arab Spring, New York: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2016, p. 17.

407
pp. [80–84] Notes
51. Amin Said, al-Thawra al-‘Arabiyya al-Kubra: Tarikh Mufassal Jami‘ li’l-Qadi-
yya al-‘Arabiyya fi Rub‘ Qurn [The Great Arab Revolt: a detailed his-
tory of the Arab case in a quarter century], vol. 3: Imarat Sharq al-
Urdun wa Qadiyyat Filistin wa Saqut al-Dawla al-Hashimiyya wa Thawrat
al-Sham [The Emirate of Eastern Jordan, the Palestine issue, the fall
of the Hashemite state, and the Sham revolution], Cairo: Maktabat
Madbuli, 1997, p. 133.
52. CO 323/761, 14162 (1916) ‘The Grand Sherif of Mecca and the
Independence of Hedjaz with a Facsimile of the Proclamation of
independence’.
53. FO 686/14 (Dec 1915–June 1918) ‘Imam Ibn Saud’, Telegram Arbur
to Wilson.
54. James Barr, A Line in the Sand, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011,
p. 31.
55. Robert McNamara, The Hashemites: The Dream of Arabia, London: Haus
Publishing Ltd, 2009, p. 73.
56. See William Mathew, Rescuing Balfour: Winston Churchill at the Colonial
Office 1921–1922 (April 2015), available at http://www.balfourpro-
ject.org/winston-churchill-1921–22/
57. Isaiah Friedman, Palestine: A Twice Promised Land? The British, the Arabs and
Zionism 1915–1920, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2000, p. 195.
58. Report of a Committee Set Up to Consider Certain Correspondence
between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sharif of Mecca. Reproduced
as Annex H in the March 1939 Report of the Colonial Office (Cmd.
5974).
59. Abdul Hadi, ‘The Balfour Declaration’, p. 14.
60. CO 323/763/24 (1917) ‘Proclamation by the Ulema of Mecca’.
61. Ibid.
62. French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Question d’Orient’ (1914), cited
in Dan Eldar, ‘French Policy towards Husayn, Sharif of Mecca’, Middle
Eastern Studies 26, 3 (1990), pp. 329–49, at p. 331.
63. Eldar, ‘French Policy towards Husayn, Sharif of Mecca’, pp. 331–3.
64. Ibid., p.  335.
65. FO 141/607/4 (1916–29) French pilgrimage to the Hedjaz (includ-
ing Algeria, Tunis, Morocco and Syria).
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid.
68. Eldar, ‘French Policy towards Husayn, Sharif of Mecca’, pp. 340–1.
69. Donald McKale, ‘Germany and the Arab Question in the First World
War’, Middle Eastern Studies 29, 2 (1993), pp. 236–53, at p. 237.
Further background and context on Germany’s ‘Turkish strategy’ and
its efforts to inflame a pan-Islamic jihad against the allies is provided

408
 notes pp. [84–86]
by McNamara, who argues that the British manoeuvres to pre-empt
this were pivotal and that their back dealings with Sharif Hussein and
Ibn Saud thus ‘took on an unexpected importance’: see McNamara,
The Hashemites, pp. 32–4.
70. Maurice Philip Remy, Max von Oppenheim: Faszination Orient (2009)
[documentary].
71. McKale, ‘Germany and the Arab Question’, pp. 244–5.
72. The Covenant of the League of Nations was negotiated during Paris
Peace Conference. It was signed in June 1919 by forty-four states,
including The Hijaz, and came into force in January 1920.
73. See, for context, Vladimir Lenin, ‘Theses on the Socialist Revolution
and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination’ (1916), in V. I. Lenin,
   

Collected Works, December 1915–July 1916, vol. 22, Moscow: Progress

Publishers, 1964.
74. M. K. Nawaz, The Meaning and Range of the Principle of Self-
   

Determination, World Rule of Law Booklet Series 30, Durham, NC:

Rule of Law Research Center, 1965, p. 83.
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid. See also Ray Stannard Baker and William E. Dodd (eds.), The
 

Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson: War and Peace, New York and London:
Harper & Brothers, 1927, vol. 0, p. 180.
77. W. C. Bullit was a senior US diplomat and a member of the American
   

Peace Commission in Paris in 1919.

78. Trygve Throntveit, ‘The Fable of the Fourteen Points: Woodrow Wilson
and National Self-Determination’, Diplomatic History, 35, 3 (2011),
pp. 445–81, at pp. 445–6.
79. Allen Lynch, ‘Woodrow Wilson and the Principle of National Self-
Determination: A Reconsideration’, Review of International Studies 28,
2 (2002), pp. 419–36, at p. 419.
80. Lenin, ‘Theses on the Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations
to Self-Determination’, p. 396.
81. Robert Lansing, The Peace Negotiations: A Personal Narrative, Project
Gutenberg, New York and Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003 [1921],
p. 97.
82. Ibid.
83. Ibid., p. 96: ‘Self-Determination is as right in theory, as the more
famous phrase “the consent of the governed”, which has for three cen-
turies been repeatedly declared to be sound by political philosophers,
and has been generally accepted as just by civilized peoples. A con-
cept which has been, however, ignored for the same three centuries
by statesmen, because the right could not be practically applied with-
out imperilling national security. Always the paramount consideration

409
pp. [86–91] Notes
 in national and international affairs. Incidentally, Wilson would res-
urrect the phrase “consent of the governed”, which seems to fore-
shadow the ultimate faith of the concept of “self-determination”.’
84. Ibid., p.  97.
85. Nele Matz-Lück, ‘Civilization and the Mandate System under the
League of Nations as Origin of Trusteeship’, Max Planck Yearbook of
International Law 9 (2005), pp. 47–95, at pp. 54–5.
86. Article 22, Covenant of the League of Nations [1919] UKTS 4 (Cmd.
153).
87. Lansing, The Peace Negotiations, p. 96.
88. Ibid.
89. Leatherdale, Britain and Saudi Arabia 1925–1939, p. 18.
90. Westrate, The Arab Bureau, p. 135.
91. The Ottoman Empire joined the ‘family of nations’ under the 1856
Treaty of Paris, which brought an end to the Crimean War.
92. In January 1918 Whitehall sent Cairo Arab Bureau Commander
D. G. Hogarth to meet with Sharif Hussein. The underlying messages
   

delivered, concerning ‘Arab aspirations’ and Palestine, became com-

monly known as the Hogarth Message.
93. Paris, Britain, the Hashemites and Arab Rule 1920–1925, p. 44.
94. Lansing, The Peace Negotiations, p. 97.
95. Ibid.
96. See, for instance, Paris, Britain, the Hashemites and Arab Rule 1920–
1925, p. 60: ‘Pichon [the French Foreign Minister] rejoined, correctly,
that the French were not parties to the British promises given Husain
and declined to be bound by them.’
97. Said, al-Thawra al-‘Arabiyya al-Kubra, p. 157.
98. FO 608/92/7 (1919) ‘Hedjaz: Desiderata of Emir Feisal, including:
various letters, correspondence and telegrams sent to and from Emir
Feisal, and reports of his movements’.
99. Said, al-Thawra al-‘Arabiyya al-Kubra, p. 27.
100. Paris, Britain, the Hashemites and Arab Rule 1920–1925, p. 58.
101. FO 608/92/7 (1919) ‘Hedjaz: Desiderata of Emir Feisal, including:
various letters, correspondence and telegrams sent to and from Emir
Feisal, and reports of his movements’. The full text of the Address
of President Wilson, as delivered at Mount Vernon on 4 July 1918
 

is available at https://archive.org/stream/addressofpreside00wilson
w#page/4/mode/2up, last accessed 28 February 2017.
 

102. FO 608/92/7 (1919) ‘Hedjaz: Desiderata of Emir Feisal, including:

various letters, correspondence and telegrams sent to and from Emir
Feisal, and reports of his movements’.
103. Ibid.

410
 notes pp. [91–94]
104. Ibid.
105. Suleiman Mousa, ‘A Matter of Principle: King Hussein of The Hijaz
and the Arabs of Palestine’, International Journal of Middle East Studies
9, 2 (1978), pp. 183–94, at pp. 184–5.
106. FO 686/74 (1920–1922) ‘Post Bellum Negotiations Between HM’s
Government and the Hejaz’.
107. IOR/L/PS/11/153 P3075 (1919) ‘Arabia: Hedjaz delegation in Paris
on unity of Arab nation in Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia’.
108. Ibid.
109. Ibid.
110. FO 686/136 (1923) ‘Ratification of the Treaty of Versailles by the
Hejaz’
111. Ibid.
112. Aimee Genell, ‘Ottoman Autonomy and the Origins of British
Imperial Control in the Middle East’, paper presented at the inau-
gural Gingko Conference at the School of Oriental and African
Studies, London, 6–7 December 2014.
 

113. Antony Anghie, ‘Nationalism, Development and the Postcolonial

State: The Legacies of the League Of Nations’, Texas International Law
Journal 41, 3 (2006), pp. 447–64.
114. Ibid.
115. FO 686/74 (1920–1922) ‘Post Bellum Negotiations Between HM’s
Government and the Hejaz’.
116. Mousa, ‘A Matter of Principle’, p. 189.
117. FO 686/27 (1921) ‘Jedda Reports’; also cited in ibid., p. 185.
118. Wahim Talib Muhammad, Tarikh al-Hijaz al-Siyasi 1916–1925 [The
political history of The Hijaz 1916–25], Beirut: al-Dar al-‘Arabiyya
li’l-Mawsu‘at, 2007.
119. Hijaz is listed as a state, but not as a member of the League of
Nations as it never ratified the Treaty of Versailles. See Manley
O. Hudson, ‘Membership in the League of Nations’, American Journal
 

of International Law 18, 3 (1924), pp. 436–58, at p. 448.

120. Michelle Burgis, ‘Faith in the State? Traditions of Territoriality,
International Law and the Emergence of Modern Arab Statehood’,
Journal of the History of International Law 11 (2009), pp. 37–79, at
p. 69.
121. Ibid., p.  71.
122. San Remo Resolution, 25 April 1920, available at http://www.cfr.
 

org/israel/san-remo-resolution/p15248, last accessed 13 April 13

 

2015.
123. David Raic, Statehood and the Law of Self-Determination, The Hague:
Kluwer, 2002, p. 93.

411
pp. [95–100] Notes
124. Lassa Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise, vol. 1: Peace, 8th edn,
London, New York, and Toronto: Longmans, Green, 1955, p. 143.
125. See the discussion above on the Mandates and their legal
challenges.
126. These are typically known as the ‘Montevideo requirements’. While
the Montevideo Convention was not concluded until 1933, it is
regarded as a declaration of customary international law. Refer to
Chapter 6 for a detailed discussion of the 1933 Montevideo
Convention on the Rights and Duties of States.
127. Summer Scott Huyette, Political Adaptation in Saudi Arabia: A Study of
the Council of Ministers, Boulder: Westview Press, 1985, p. 53.
128. A conference of the post-First World War Allied Supreme Council
held in April 1920 determined the allocation of Class ‘A’ Mandates
for administration of the former Ottoman-ruled territories with deci-
sions embodied in the Treaty of Sèvres.
129. IOR/L/PS/11/179 P7739 (1920) ‘King Hussein: relations of HM
Government and the King of the Hedjaz’.
130. Ibid.
131. Ibid.
132. Teitelbaum, ‘“Taking Back” the Caliphate’, p. 422.
133. Said, al-Thawra al-‘Arabiyya al-Kubra, p. 176.
134. Teitelbaum, ‘“Taking Back” the Caliphate’, pp. 412–15.
135. Ibid.
136. Mousa, ‘A Matter of Principle’, p. 194.
137. Emir Abdullah (1924), as quoted in Teitelbaum, ‘Sharif Husayn ibn
Ali and the Hashemite Vision of the Post-Ottoman Order’, p. 117.
138. Kramer, Islam Assembled, p. 81.

4. HIJAZI SELF-DETERMINATION AND THE NEW INTERNATIONAL

SYSTEM
1. The first Saudi Islamic state or Emirate of Dir‘iyya (1745–1818); the
second Saudi Islamic state or Emirate of Najd (1843–65); and the third
Saudi Islamic state (1902–21), also referred to as the Emirate of Riyadh.
2. Al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, p. 18.
3. Mohammad ‘Ali Pasha (1769–1849) was a commander of the Ottoman
army, a vali, and the self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan, with
temporary Ottoman endorsement. He is considered the founder of
modern Egypt due to his military, economic, and cultural reforms in
the country.
4. Al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, p. 32.
5. Alexei Vasiliev, The History of Saudi Arabia, London: Saqi, 2000, p. 177.

412
 notes pp. [100–102]
6. Al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, p. 39.
7. Kostiner, The Making of Saudi Arabia, 1916–1936.
8. In fact, their tense, antagonistic relations had become evident earlier,
in 1917, ‘by the actions of the Wahhabis in … Khurma which he
[Hussein] claimed’: Troeller, The Birth of Saudi Arabia, p. 111. Troeller
adds that ‘the Sharif was highly suspicious of the British attitude to
ibn Sa’ud and also greatly feared the Wahhabi revival—the Ikhwan
movement—and its potential strength’ (ibid.). This observation shows
that the Sharif had foreseen both the risks associated with the grow-
ing Wahhabi power and Ibn Saud’s calculations, as well as British impe-
rial manoeuvrings. For further analysis see also Joseph Kostiner,
‘Prologue of Hashemite Downfall and Saudi Ascendancy: A New Look
at the Khurma Dispute, 1917–1919’, in Asher Susser and Aryeh
Shmuelevitz (eds.), The Hashemites in the Modern Arab World: Essays in
Honour of the Late Professor Uriel Dan, London: Frank Cass, 1995,
pp. 47–64.
9. FO 686/117 (1922) ‘Wahhabi Propaganda in the Hejaz’.
10. Said, al-Thawra al-‘Arabiyya al-Kubra, p. 144.
11. Kostiner, The Making of Saudi Arabia, 1916–1936, pp. 65–6.
12. FO 686/92 (July 1925–December 1925) ‘Hedjaz internal situation:
Hedjaz Najd War’.
13. Peter Wilson and Douglas Graham, Saudi Arabia: The Coming Storm,
Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994, p. 41.
   

14. Troeller, The Birth of Saudi Arabia, p. 218.

15. al-Enazy, The Creation of Saudi Arabia, p. 135.
16. Muhammad, Tarikh al-Hijaz al-Siyasi 1916–1925, p. 376.
17. Research conducted by the author—through oral accounts obtained
through systematic fieldwork, as well as extensive data mining and
processing of unpublished archival material—suggests that the size of
the toll far exceeds the lower estimates and very possibly reaches this
upper estimate.
18. Mark Weston, Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the
Present, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2008, p. 134. Also note that other sources
mention that the total toll of the Wahhabi brutality reached ‘400,000
people, including women and children’ killed, in the process of estab-
lishing the Saudi state. See Simon Ross Valentine, Force and Fanaticism:
Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia and Beyond, New York: Oxford University
Press, 2015, esp. ch. 4. For the exact reference of the figure, see sub-
section titled ‘The capture of the Taif: a further lesson in Ikhwan
brutality’.
19. Baker, King Hussein and the Kingdom of Hijaz, p. 202.
20. Al-Qibla, December 1925.
21. Muhammad, Tarikh al-Hijaz al-Siyasi 1916–1925, p. 378.

413
pp. [102–107] Notes
22. Hans Kohn, ‘The Unification of Arabia’, Foreign Affairs 13, 1 (1934),
pp. 91–103, at p. 95.
23. Howarth, The Desert King, p. 143. This is supported by Weston, Prophets
and Princes, p. 134, where he elaborates that King Saud ‘wept with
grief’ and sent orders forbidding other murders of unarmed civilians,
promising to execute violators of this order.
24. Kohn, ‘The Unification of Arabia’, p. 95.
25. Ibid., p.  94.
26. FO 686/90 ‘Hedjaz Internal Situation’, British Agent in Jeddah to
Foreign Office, 11 September 1924.
 

27. Ibid.
28. IOR/L/PS/10/1127 Pt 9 ‘Arabia: Najd–Hedjaz hostilities 1924–25.
Wahhabi Massacres at Taif 1924. Compensation for British subjects for
loses sustained through Taif atrocities’, Acting British Consul in Jeddah
to HBM Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, April 1926.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. FO 686/90 ‘Hedjaz Internal Situation’, British Agent in Jeddah to
Foreign Office, London, 16 September 1924.
 

32. Ibid.
33. al-Enazy, The Creation of Saudi Arabia, p. 135.
34. Teitelbaum, The Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia, p. 210.
35. ‘Memorandum on the Caliphate and the Situation in The Hijaz’,
Telegraph No. 43 from Singapore, the Administrative Council of the
Caliphate Congress in Cairo, 11-October-1924 (India Stamped), al-
Azhar Archives, Cairo. A. Saddaqa Dahlan al-Makki was among those
 

in exile in Singapore.
36. Muhammad, Tarikh al-Hijaz al-Siyasi 1916–1925, p. 378.
37. Baker, King Hussein and the Kingdom of Hejaz, p. 205.
38. E. C. Hodgkin (ed.), Letters from Jeddah 1923–5 and 1936–9: Reader
   

Bullard, Reading: Ithaca Press, 1993, p. 63.

39. IOR/L/PS/10/1124; File 3665 (1924) ‘Arabia: situation 1924;
Wahhabi attack on Hedjaz, capture of Taif and defeat of Hedjaz army,
abdication of King Hussein’.
40. Baker, King Hussein and the Kingdom of Hejaz, p. 209.
41. Said, al-Thawra al-‘Arabiyya al-Kubra, p. 191.
42. FO 686/90 ‘Hedjaz Internal Situation’, British Agent in Jeddah to
Foreign Office, London, 4 October 1924.
 

43. Government of Hijaz, Telegram No. 35 to the Congress of the Islamic

Caliphate, Port Sudan to Ezbekia 4–11–1924, Egyptian State Telegraph.
Al-Azhar Archives, Cairo.
44. Teitelbaum, The Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia, p. 213.
45. Said, al-Thawra al-‘Arabiyya al-Kubra, p. 190.

414
 notes pp. [107–110]
46. FO 686/90 ‘Hedjaz Internal Situation’, British Agent in Jeddah to
Foreign Office, London, 4 October 1924.
 

47. ‘Memorandum on the Caliphate and the Situation in The Hijaz’

Telegraph No. 43 from Singapore, the Administrative Council of the
Caliphate Congress in Cairo, 11-October-1924 (India Stamped), al-
Azhar Archives, Cairo, p. 2.
48. There were a number of drafts of the treaty between 1921 and 1923,
available in Muhamad, Tarikh al-Hijaz al-Siyasi 1916–1925, pp. 459–
83.
49. Teitelbaum, The Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia, p. 213.
50. FO 686/92 (July 1925–December 1925) ‘Hedjaz internal situation:
Hedjaz Najd War’.
51. Ibid.
52. IOR/L/PS/10/1125 P 3665 (1924) ‘Arabia: Situation 1924. HM
Government’s proclamation of complete neutrality regarding the future
of the Holy Cities’.
53. IOR/L/PS/10/1126 P3252 (1925) ‘Arabia: situation 1925, Hijaz–
Najd Hostilities’.
54. Baker, King Hussein and the Kingdom of Hejaz, p. 212.
55. IOR/R/15/1/565 (1924) ‘Relations between Najd and The Hijaz’
HBM Agent and Consul in Jeddah to Foreign Office.
56. FO 686/92 (July 1925–December 1925) ‘Hedjaz internal situation:
Hedjaz Najd War’.
57. Ibid.
58. IOR/L/PS/10/1127, Pt 7 ‘Arabia: Najd–Hijaz Situation. Fall of
Medina. Surrender of Jeddah. Abdication of King Ali. Desecration of
shrines by the Wahabis.’ Paraphrase Telegram from the Officer
Administering the Government of Palestine to the Secretary of State
for the Colonies, 24 August 1925.
 

59. IOR/L/PS/10/1127, Pt 7 ‘Arabia: Najd–Hijaz Situation. Fall of

Medina. Surrender of Jeddah. Abdication of King Ali. Desecration of
shrines by the Wahabis.’ The Under Secretary of State, Colonial Office
to Under Secretary of State, India Office, 28 August 1925.
 

60. FO 686/92 (July–December 1925) ‘Hedjaz Internal Situation: Hedjaz

and Najd War’.
61. IOR/L/PS/11/266 P734 (1926) ‘Arabia: the Hedjaz; Najd
hostilities’.
62. Ibid.
63. Literally ‘the good ancestors’, the first few generations of Muslims,
including the Prophet, his companions and followers at the time.
64. Umm al-Qura, Year 1, no. 54, 8 January 1926.
 

65. Umm al-Qura, Year 1, no. 55, 15 January 1926.

 

415
pp. [111–115] Notes
66. Umm al-Qura, Year 1, no. 45, 6 November 1925.
 

67. IOR/L/PS/10/1127, Pt 9 ‘Arabia: Najd Hijaz Situation. Fall of

Medina. Surrender of Jeddah. Abdication of King Ali. Desecration of
shrines by the Wahhabis, 6 November 1925, Acting Consul in Jeddah
 

Jordan to Austen Chamberlain.

68. Umm al-Qura, Year 1, no. 30, 24 July 1925.
 

69. Umm al-Qura, Year 1, no. 39, 25 September 1925.

 

70. Umm al-Qura, Year 1, no. 45, 6 November 1925.

 

71. Umm al-Qura, Year 1, no. 52, 27 December 1925.

 

72. Umm al-Qura, Year 1, no. 54, 8 January 1926.

 

73. See for instance the discussion of the heightened tensions arising from
the announcement and during the Congress in Kramer, Islam Assembled,
ch. 10, pp. 106–22.
74. Umm al-Qura, Year 1, no. 55, 15 January 1926.
 

75. Umm al-Qura, Year 1, no. 71, 14 May 1926.

 

76. Umm al-Qura, Year 1, no. 75, 11 June 1926.

 

77. Umm al-Qura, Year 1, no. 75, 9 July 1926.

 

78. IOR/L/PS/10/1165/1 (1926/7) ‘Arabia: Imam Ibn Saud; title; rec-

ognition as king of the Hedjaz’.
79. Mai Yamani, The Cradle of Islam: The Hijaz and the Quest for an Arabian
Identity, London: I. B. Tauris, 2004, p. 7.
   

80. Huyette, Political Adaptation in Saudi Arabia, p. 21.

81. Yamani, The Cradle of Islam, p. 11.
82. See for example the discussion in Kostiner, The Making of Saudi-Arabia
1916–1936, pp. 101–5, especially p. 101, for greater context on these
developments, and how Ibn Saud advanced and expanded his admin-
istrative control over The Hijaz.
83. Al-Hassan Hamzah, ‘The Role of Religion in Building National Identity:
A Case Study of Saudi Arabia’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Westminster,
 

2006, p. 148.
84. Warren Dockter, Churchill and the Islamic World: Orientalism, Empire, and
Diplomacy in the Middle East, London: I. B.Tauris, 2015.
 

85. Ibid.
86. Huyette, Political Adaptation in Saudi Arabia, p. 55.
87. Umm al-Qura, Year 1, no. 90, 3 September 1926; see also Huyette,
 

Political Adaptation in Saudi Arabia, p. 55.

88. Hamzah, ‘The Role of Religion in Building National Identity’, p. 149.
89. Huyette, Political Adaptation in Saudi Arabia, p. 5.
90. Shahid Jamal Ansari, Political Modernization in the Gulf, New Delhi:
Northern Book Centre, 1998, p. 123.
91. Huyette, Political Adaptation in Saudi Arabia, p. 56.
92. See, for example, Don Peretz, The Middle East Today, Westport:

416
 notes pp. [115–121]
 Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994; Ansari, Political Modernization in
the Gulf.
93. CO 732/25/7 (1927) ‘Hejaz Nationality Law’.
94. Leatherdale, Britain and Saudi Arabia 1925–1939, ch. 7, pp. 167–84.
95. League of Nations, ‘Appendix: Covenant for the League of Nations
Showing the Preliminary Reported Draft and the Covenant as Finally
Adopted at the Plenary Session’, Proceedings of the Academy of Political
Science in the City of New York 8, 3 (1919), pp. 127–54.
96. Leatherdale, Britain and Saudi Arabia 1925–1939, pp. 172–7.
97. The Darin Pact was signed in 1915 between the ruler of Najd,
Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, and Great Britain, in which he agreed not to
attack British Protectorates in the Persian Gulf. In exchange, the
British recognized him as the ruler of Najd.
98. (1915) 221 CTS 250.
99. Khaldoun Hasan al-Naqeeb, Society and State in the Gulf and Arab
Peninsula: A Different Perspective, London and New York: Routledge,
2012, p. 69.
100. Ibid.
101. Ibid.
102. Philip P. Graves, Abdullah I of Jordan, London: Jonathan Cape, 1950,
 

p. 186.
103. FO 967/41 (1931) ‘Internal situation in Hijaz–Nejd’.
104. Ibid.
105. Ibid.
106. IOR/R/15/1/568 (1932) ‘Hijaz–Nejd: Miscellaneous’.
107. Ibrahim F. al-Shraah, ‘Hijaz Liberals Party and its Political Role
 

between 1928 and 1935’, Political and Social Studies 37, 1 (2010),
p. 24.
108. Vasiliev, The History of Saudi Arabia, p. 282.
109. FO 141/764/6 (1933) ‘Arabia. Anti Ibn Saud movements’.
110. Al-Shraah, ‘Hijaz Liberals Party’, p. 29.
111. Ibid., p.  27.
112. Vasiliev, The History of Saudi Arabia, p. 282.
113. IOR/R/15/1/568 (1932) ‘Hijaz–Nejd: Miscellaneous’.
114. FO 967/46 (1932) ‘Internal Situation in Hejaz–Nejd’.
115. Al-Shraah, ‘Hijaz Liberals Party’, p. 32.
116. FO 141/764/6 (1933) ‘Arabia. Anti Ibn Saud movements’.
117. FO 967/55 (1933) ‘Local Government. Dabbagh Conspiracy’,
Telegram from HM Minister, Jeddah to Foreign Office, 19 January  

1933.
118. Al-Shraah, ‘Hijaz Liberals Party’, p. 26.
119. FO 967/55 (1933) ‘Local Government. Dabbagh Conspiracy’,

417
pp. [121–127] Notes
Telegram from HM Minister, Jeddah to Foreign Office, 19 January
 

1933.
120. Ibid.
121. Al-Shraah, ‘Hijaz Liberals Party’, p. 26.
122. FO 967/55 (1933) ‘Local Government. Dabbagh Conspiracy’, Report
about Abdul Rauf Al-Sabban.
123. Ibid.
124. FO 967/55 (1933) Local Government. Dabbagh Conspiracy, Letter
from G. W. Rendell, Foreign Office in London to Lieutenant Colonel
   

Sir Francis Humphrys in Baghdad, 23 February 1933.

 

125. Ibid.
126. Al-Shraah, ‘Hijaz Liberals Party’, p. 29.
127. Vasiliev, The History of Saudi Arabia, p. 283.
128. Al-Shraah, ‘Hijaz Liberals Party’, p. 29.
129. FO 967/55 (1933) ‘Local Government. Dabbagh Conspiracy’,
Telegram from HM Minister, Jeddah to Foreign Office, London,
2 February 1933.
 

130. FO 967/55 (1933) ‘Local Government. Dabbagh Conspiracy’, Letter

from Sir Andrew Ryan to Fuad Hamza, 19 March 1933.
 

131. Ibid.
132. Ibid.
133. Ibid.
134. Ibid.
135. IOR/R/15/1/568 (1932) ‘Hijaz–Nejd: Miscellaneous’.
136. Ibid.
137. Ibid.
138. Ibid.
139. Leatherdale, Britain and Saudi Arabia 1925–1939, p. 177.
140. HC Debate, 11 November 1920, vol. 134., pp. 1358–9.
 

141. Henry Cabot Lodge, The Senate and the League of Nations, New York:
Scribners, 1924, pp. 390–1.
142. Ibid., p.  365.
143. Ibid.
144. Jeremy Rabkin, Law without Nations?: Why Constitutional Governments
Require Sovereign States, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005,
p. 118.
145. Kalevi Jaakko Holsti, Taming the Sovereigns: Institutional Change in
International Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991,
pp. 128–9.
146. See for instance the discussion in Oppenheim, International Law,
p. 544.
147. Crawford regards Taft’s judgment in Tinoco to be the locus classicus
of the declaratory theory. See, specifically, James Crawford, ‘The

418
 notes pp. [127–134]
Criteria for Statehood under International Law’, British Yearbook of
International Law 48, 1 (1976), pp. 93–182, at p. 103.
148. The full text of the Montevideo Convention is available online at
https://www.ilsa.org/jessup/jessup15/Montevideo%20Convention.
pdf, last accessed 9 March 2017.
 

149. Aguilar-Amory and Royal Bank of Canada claims (Great Britain v.

Costa Rica) [1923] RIAA 369–399, per Taft CJ.
150. Crawford, ‘The Criteria for Statehood under International Law’,
p. 103. See also Promises and Betrayals: Britain and the Struggle for the
Holy Land, dir. Arense Kvaale, 2002 [documentary].
151. Kostiner, The Making of Saudi Arabia, 1916–1936, p. 64.
152. Aguilar-Amory and Royal Bank of Canada claims (Great Britain v.
Costa Rica) [1923] RIAA 369, per Taft CJ.
153. Oppenheim, International Law, p. 184.
154. Raic, Statehood and the Law of Self-Determination, p. 109.
155. Ibid.
156. Quincy Wright, ‘The Stimson Note of January 7, 1932’, American
Journal of International Law 26, 2 (1932), pp. 342–8, at p. 324.
157. Although one can debate the ineffectiveness of the response to the
Japanese aggression ad infinitum.
158. Covenant of the League of Nations, Article 10, available at http://
avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp#art10, last accessed
16 April 2015.
 

159. Ibid., Article 12.

160. Ibid., Article 11.

5. ISLAMIC SELF-DETERMINATION AND THE INTERNATIONAL

LEGAL SYSTEM
1. Qur’an 3:103.
2. Ali Karaosmanoglu, ‘Islam and its Implications for the International
System’, in M. Heper and R. Israeli (eds.), Islam and Politics in the
   

Modern Middle East, New York: St Martin’s Press, 1984, pp. 115–16.

3. Teitelbaum, ‘“Taking Back” the Caliphate’, p. 414.
4. Ibid., p.  415.
5. Ibid., p.  423.
6. Ibid., pp.  412–24.
7. Ibid., p.  413.
8. A. al-Katib, al-Fikr al-Siyasi al-Wahhabi Qir’a Tahlilih [Wahhabi political
 

thought: an analytical reading], Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, 2008, p. 113.

9. It is important to note that, ideologically, the Ikhwan did not consider
the Ottomans to be ‘pure’ Muslims. It should also be noted that they

419
pp. [135–139] Notes
 had no connection with the more contemporary Muslim Brotherhood
of Egypt.
10. For context and a more detailed account of the campaign see Abdulaziz
al-Fahad, ‘The ‘Imama vs. the ‘Iqal: Hadari–Bedouin Conflict and the
Formation of the Saudi State’, EUI Working Paper, RSC 2002/11,
available at http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/1769/02_
11.pdf;sequence=1, last accessed 10 March 2017; republished in
 

Madawi Al-Rasheed and Robert Vitalis (eds.), Counter-Narratives: History,

Contemporary Society and Politics in Saudi Arabia and Yemen (2004) New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp. 35–75.
11. For further background on Churchill’s involvement in the Middle East,
and particularly The Hijaz, see Christopher Catherwood, Churchill’s
Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq, New York: Basic Books,
2005. See also Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical
Islam, New York: Serpent’s Tail, 2012; David E. Omissi, Air Power and
 

Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force, 1919–39, Studies in Imperialism,

Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990; Paris, Britain, the
Hashemites and Arab Rule.
12. Teitelbaum, ‘“Taking Back” the Caliphate’, p. 415.
13. Ibid., p.  416.
14. Ibid., p.  417.
15. FO 371/9135/E 601, Forbes Adam to Curzon, 12 January 1923.  

Cited in Teitelbaum, ‘“Taking Back” the Caliphate’, p. 419.

16. The meeting was attended by Hussein’s representative, Nadji al-Asil,
Shakib Arslan, Nuri al-Sa’id, Dja’far al-’Askari, Isma’il Sidqi, Ahmad
Lutfi Bey, and two Indian nationalists. The meeting was held at the
Hotel Cecil, in the rooms of the Egyptian delegation, and it was
observed by an agent of the British SIS. See Teitelbaum, ‘“Taking Back”
 

the Caliphate’, p. 420.

17. Ibid., pp.  420–1.
18. Ibid., p.  421.
19. In the February 1924 edition of al-Qibla Hussein declared that he
would ‘do his utmost to re-establish the Caliphate’: see ibid., p. 422.
20. This coincided with Hussein sustaining disastrous attacks from the
Ikhwan. Makkah would fall later that year.
21. Kramer, Islam Assembled.
22. Ibid., p.  31.
23. Ibid., pp.  80–5.
24. Ibid., p.  91.
25. Ibid., pp.  91–2.
26. Fathi A. S. Shalabi, ‘Khilafa Islamic Congress in Cairo 1926’, (1989)
   

Ph.D. thesis, Faculty of Arabic History and Civilization, al-Azhar

 

University, 1989, p. 14.

420
 notes pp. [139–143]
27. Ibid., p.  74.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Elie Kedourie, ‘Egypt and the Caliphate 1915–1946’, Journal of the
Royal Society of Great Britain and Ireland 3 (1963), pp. 208–48.
33. Ibid.
34. A discussion on the Indian Khilafat Movement and its relevance to our
study follows below. For further context and in-depth analysis of the
Movement and its origins see A. C. Niemeijer, The Khilafat Movement
   

in India 1919–1924, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972; also available

at http://www.oapen.org/download?type=document&docid=613370,
last accessed 1 March 2017. See also Gail Minault, The Khilafat
 

Movement. Religious Symbolism and Political Mobilization in India, New

York: Columbia University Press, 1982.
35. Letter from Shawkat Ali to the Secretary General of the Congress,
January 15, 1925 (117 al-Azhar Library Archive, the Congress, 225).
36. Shalabi, ‘Khilafa Islamic Congress in Cairo 1926’, p. 208.
37. Ibid., p.  226.
38. Ibid., p.  220.
39. Muhammed Abu-al-Isa’aad, al-Sa‘udiyya wa’l-Ikhwan al-Muslimin [Saudi
Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood], Cairo: Markaz al-Dirasat wa’l-
Ma’alumat al-Qanuniyya li Huquq al-Insan, 2014, available at: https://
www.tahmil-kutubpdf.com/onlineread/M942G9.html
40. Kramer, Islam Assembled, p. 86.
41. Israel Gershoni and James Jankowski, Egypt, Islam and the Arabs: The
Search for Egyptian Nationhood, 1900–1930, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1987, p. 65.
42. Ibid., p.  64.
43. Ibid.
44. Kedourie, ‘Egypt and the Caliphate 1915–1946’, p. 227.
45. Kramer, Islam Assembled, p. 93.
46. Ibid., p.  106.
47. Shaykh Muhammad al-Ahmadi al-Zawahiri (1878–1944) was the chief
of the Egyptian delegation to the Makkah congress and later Grand
Shaykh of al-Azhar (1929–35). He was a well-known Shafi’i scholar.
See, for instance, Kramer, Islam Assembled, p. 107.
48. Al-Isa’aad, al-Sa‘udiyya wa’l-Ikhwan al-Muslimin.
49. Kramer, Islam Assembled, p. 125.
50. Ibid., p.  202.
51. For further context see Naeem Qureshi, Pan-Islam in British Indian

421
pp. [143–146] Notes
Politics: A Study of the Khilafat Movement, 1918–1924, Leiden: Brill,
1999.
52. Ibid., p.  86.
53. Leader of The Hijaz Liberation Party.
54. Leader of the British Zionist Federation.
55. Qureshi, Pan-Islam in British Indian Politics, pp. 52, 92.
56. FO 371/15283 Eastern: General. Code 65 Files 1205 (papers 5784–
end)—3208 (to paper 5274), Warner minutes, 25 November 1931.
 

57. Kramer, Islam Assembled, p. 135.

58. Ibid., p.  151.
59. For a Western account on the work of Abdel Raziq, covering thor-
oughly the impact of his work, the controversies, and the reactions it
generated, but also its lasting impact and value, see James Brucek,
‘The Controversy of Shaykh ‘Ali ‘Abd Al-Raziq’, Ph.D. thesis, Florida
 

State University, 2012, available at http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/island-

ora/object/fsu:183227/datastream/PDF/view, last accessed 19 March  

2017.
60. Sultan Abdulhamid II (r. 31 August 1876–27 April 1909) was the
   

thirty-fourth sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

61. J. Willis, ‘Debating the Caliphate: Islam and Nation in the Work of
 

Rashid Rida and Abul Kalam Azad’, International History Review 32, 4
(2010), pp. 711–32, at p. 714.
62. Tufan S. Buzpinar, ‘Opposition to the Ottoman Caliphate in the Early
 

Years of Abdülhamid II: 1877–1882’, Die Welt des Islams 36, 1 (1996),
pp. 59–89, republished in Carool Kersten (ed.), The Caliphate and
Islamic Statehood Formation: Formation: Fragmentation and Modern
Interpretations, Berlin: Gerlach, 2015, pp. 6–27, see here at p. 9.
63. Ibid., pp.  17–19.
64. Ibid., pp.  12–14.
65. Tauber, ‘Three Approaches, One Idea’. Although the book did not
mention the name of any sultan or ruler, it spoke about the phenom-
enon of tyranny and how it should be contested.
66. ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Umm al-Qura: Mu’tamar al-Nahda al-Islami-
yya al-Awwal [The Mother of Villages: the first conference of the Islamic
renaissance] ed. Muhammad Jamal Tahhan, Damascus: Dar Safahat li’l-
Dirasat wa’l-Nashr, 2012.
67. With few notable exceptions, such as the theses by Radwan al-Sayyid,
Mohamad Salim al-Awwa, Kamal Imam, Fathi Othman, and Rashid
al-Ghannouchi.
68. Shaykh ‘Ali Abdel Raziq was recognized as one of the leading al-Azhar
scholars, and was later appointed as a judge in Shari’a courts. He stud-
ied for a short time at Oxford.

422
 notes pp. [146–149]
69. In this regard, Abdel Raziq firmly believed that Arabs gathered under
the leadership of the Prophet to form a community of Muslims, in
which the Prophet was a religious and not a political leader, and that
the unity of the Arabs therefore was not political; rather, it was mainly
unity in religion and faith despite political differences. In that way, he
argues, the structures of Islam are religious not political, and—accord-
ing to him—this explains why the Prophet did not interfere in the
political affairs of Arab tribes, including in government, administra-
tive, and judicial systems or economic ties. See A. Abdel Raziq, al-
 

Islam wa Usul al-Hukm [Islam and the foundations of governance],

Cairo: Dar al-Hilal, 1925, pp. 125–9.
70. John L. Esposito, Islam and Politics, 4th edn, New York: Syracuse
 

University Press, 1998, p. 73.

71. In Arabic fiqh al-khilafa wa-tatawururha li tusbih ‘usbat umam islamiyya.
He believed that even the existence of the Caliphate of the first four
caliphs was merely a political phenomenon. However, all other forms
of governance that came after the first four caliphs were monarchies
that were based on force and power. See Raziq, al-Islam wa Usul al-
Hukm, p. 61.
72. Mohammad Immarah, al-Islam wa Usul al-Hukm li ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq:
Dirasa wa Watha’iq [‘Ali Abdel Raziq’s book Islam and the system of gov-
ernance: studies and documents], 2nd edn, Beirut: al-Mu’assasa al-
‘Arabiyya li al-Dirasat wa al-Nashr, 1988, p. 182.
73. Abd Razzaq al-Sanhuri, ‘Le Califat: Son Evolution vers une Société des
Nations Orientale’, published as Fiqh al-Khilafa, op. cit.
 

74. Al-Sanhuri, Fiqh al-khilafa, pp. 89–90.

75. Ibid., p.  96.
76. Ibid., p.  89.
77. Ibid., p.  98.
78. Imarah, al-Islam wa Usul al-Hukm.
79. Al-Sanhuri, Fiqh al-Khilafa, p. 80.
80. Muhammad Imarah, ‘al-Khilafa al-Islamiyya’ [The Islamic Caliphate],
in Ahmad al-Tayyib (ed.), al-Azhar fi Muwajahat al-Fikr al-Irhabi: Min
A‘mal Mu’tamar al-Azhar al-‘Alami li-Muwajahat al-Tatarruf wa-al-Irhab
[Selected papers from the al-Azhar conference for confronting terror-
ism and extremism: Cairo, 11–12 Safar 1436 AH—3–4 December  

2014], Cairo: Mashyakat al-Azhar al-Sharif wa Dar al-Quds al-‘Arabi,

2015, pp. 25–37.
81. Muhammad Imarah, Ihya’ al-Khilafa al-Islamiyya: Haqiqa aw Khayal
[Reviving the Islamic Caliphate: reality or fiction?]. Cairo: Maktabat
al-Shuruq al-Dawliyya, 2005, p. 13. See also Imarah, ‘al-Khilafa
al-Islamiyya’.

423
pp. [149–155] Notes
82. King Fouad was seeking the position of caliph at the time, and the
book undermined his ambition.
83. Imarah, al-Islam wa Usul al-Hukm.
84. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Fahmi (Basha) was dismissed from office by Egypt’s king
because of his opinions regarding Abdel Raziq’s book.
85. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Fahmi (Basha), Hadhihi Hayati [This is my life], Cairo:
Dar al-Hilal 1963, pp. 153–4.
86. Sayed Khatab, The Power of Sovereignty: The Political and Ideological
Philosophy of Sayyid Qutb, London: Routledge, 2006, p. 9.
87. Imarah, al-Islam wa Usul al-Hukm, pp. 8–16.
88. The objectives of the Caliphate were: (1) the unity of the Muslim
nation (as a religious obligation); (2) the integrity of the Islamic ter-
ritories in dar al-islam; (3) the sovereignty of the Islamic Shari’a (al-
hakimiyya) in the nation and the state.
89. Al-Sanhuri, Fiqh al-Khilafa.
90. For added analysis and context, in English, see Enid Hill, ‘al-Sanhuri
and Islamic Law: The Place and Significance of Islamic Law in the Life
and Work of ‘Abd al-Razzaq Ahmad al-Sanhuri, Egyptian Jurist and
Scholar, 1895–1971 [Part II]’, Arab Law Quarterly 3, 2 (1988),
pp. 182–218.
91. Al-Sanhuri, Fiqh al-Khilafa wa-Tatawwuruha li Tusbih ‘Usbat Umam
Sharqiyya, p. 339.
92. Abd al-Razzak al-Sanhuri, al-Din wa’l-Dawla fi al-Islam [Religion and
state in Islam], n.p.: Majallat Hayyat Qada’iyya al-Dawla, 1989,
pp. 107–8.
93. Nadia al-Sanhuri, ‘Abd al-Razzak al-Sanhuri min Khilal Awraq al-Shakh-
siyya [Abdalrazzak al-Sanhuri from his private documents], Cairo: al-
Zahra li’l-I‘lam al-‘Arabi, 1988, pp. 122–3. See also Mohammad
Imarah, Islamiyyat al-Sanhuri Basha: Islamiyyat al-Dawla wa-al-Madaniyya
wa-al-‘Umran [The Islamic writings of al-Sanhuri: the Islamic perspec-
tive of state and civilization], Cairo: Dar al-Salam, 2010.
94. Imara, Ihya’ al-Khilafa al-Islamiyya.
95. ‘Memorandum on the Caliphate and the Situation in The Hijaz’,
Telegraph No. 43 from Singapore, the Administrative Council of the
Caliphate Congress in Cairo, 11-October-1924 (India Stamped), al-
Azhar Archives, Cairo, p. 1.

6. INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HIJAZ

1. 
For further context on the origins of the Iraq–Kuwait war see
A. J. Bacevich and E. Inbar (eds.), The Gulf War of 1991 Reconsidered,
     

London: Routledge, 2003 (esp. chs. 1 and 2). Also, for a detailed

424
 notes pp. [156–158]
 account on the territorial disputes between Kuwait and Iraq in a his-
torical framework, see H. Rahman, The Making of the Gulf War: Origins
 

of Kuwait’s Long-Standing Territorial Dispute, Reading: Ithaca Press, 2002.

For an interesting, critical analysis of the different perspectives, per-
ceptions, and justifications for the war see George Lakoff, ‘The
Metaphor System Used to Justify the War in the Gulf’, peer-reviewed
paper presented at Berkeley, 30 January 1991, available at https://
 

escholarship.org/uc/item/9sm131vj#page-1, last accessed 14 March  

2017. Moreover, to see how the dynamics of the time and Iraqi claims
in the run-up to the Iraqi invasion were recorded in the Western
media, see, for example, Thomas C. Hayes, ‘Confrontation in the Gulf:
 

The Oilfield Lying below the Iraq–Kuwait Dispute’, New York Times,
3 September 1990, available at http://www.nytimes.com/1990/
 

09/03/world/confrontation-in-the-gulf-the-oilfield-lying-below-the-
iraq-kuwait-dispute.html?pagewanted=all, last accessed 14 March  

2017. Lastly, for the failure of the USA to deter Saddam, see Theodore
H. Draper, ‘The True History of the Gulf War’, New York Review of
 

Books, 30 January 1992, available at http://www.nybooks.com/arti-

 

cles/1992/01/30/the-true-history-of-the-gulf-war/, last accessed

14 March 2017.
 

2. Derek Gregory, The Colonial Present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Malden,

MA: Blackwell, 2004, p. 156. In this sense, Iraq’s actions were simi-
lar to the justification offered by Saudi Arabia towards Hijaz, that it
was ‘re-unifying’ the seven provinces of Saudi Arabia. See M. Almana,
 

Arabia Unified: A Portrait of Imam Ibn Saud, London: Hutchinson Benham,

1982.
3. Almana, Arabia Unified.
4. Hayes, ‘Confrontation in the Gulf’.
5. Holsti, Taming the Sovereigns, pp. 128–9.
6. Oppenheim, International Law, p. 544.
7. Sir Hersch Lauterpacht (1897–1960) was a leading international law-
yer and senior judge (in the UN among others). His contribution to
the modern international legal framework is widely considered as
paramount.
8. Hersch Lauterpacht, Recognition in International Law, New York: AMS
Press, 1978, p. 6.
9. Tim Hillier, Sourcebook on Public International Law, London: Cavendish,
1998, p. 202.
10. See article 1, Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States
(1933), League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 165, no. 3802 (1936).
11. T. Grant, ‘Defining Statehood: The Montevideo Convention and its
 

Discontents’, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 37 (1999), pp. 403–

57, at p. 416.

425
pp. [158–160] Notes
12. Ibid., p.  417.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., p.  418.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. This was a problem that Latin American states had faced in the nine-
teenth century; by the time of the Montevideo Convention, however,
they had been recognized.
18. Alain Pellet, ‘The Opinions of the Badinter Arbitration Committee: A
Second Breath for the Self-Determination of Peoples’, European Journal
of International Law 3 (1992), pp. 178–85, at p. 182.
19. See the discussion on statehood in Chapters 1 and 2 above.
20. Thomas D. Musgrave, Self-Determination and National Minorities, Oxford:
 

Clarendon Press, 1997, p. 181; Sakeus Akweenda, ‘Territorial Integrity:

A Brief Analysis of a Complex Concept’, African Journal of International
& Comparative Law 1 (1989), p. 500; Jure Vidmar, ‘Territorial Integrity
and the Law of Statehood’, George Washington International Law Review
44 (2012), p. 697.
21. ‘The Members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as
against external aggression the territorial integrity of all Members of
the League’ (Covenant of the League of Nations (1919), Article 10)
published in League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 108, p. 188.
22. Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly
Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the
Charter of the United Nations, General Assembly Res. 2625 (XXV),
UN Doc. A/RES/25/2625. See, specifically, the following three prin-
ciples: (a) ‘The principle that States shall refrain in their international
relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integ-
rity or political independence of any State or in any other manner
inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations’; (b) ‘The prin-
ciple concerning the duty not to intervene in matters within the
domestic jurisdiction of any State, in accordance with the Charter’;
and (c) ‘The principle of sovereign equality of States’.
23. Conference on Security and Co-Operation in Europe Final Act,
Helsinki, 1975. Full text available online at http://www.osce.org/
mc/39501, last accessed 14 March 2017.
 

24. The Charter of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, available at

http://www.oic-oci.org/page/?p_id=53&p_ref=27&lan=en, last
accessed 14 March 2017.
 

25. See, regarding that problem, Joshua Castellino, ‘Territorial Integrity

and the Right to Self-Determination: An Examination of the
Conceptual Tools’, Brooklyn Journal of International Law 33, 2 (2007–

426
 notes pp. [160–161]
8), pp. 503–68, at p. 503. See also Paul Szasz, ‘The Irresistible Force
of Self-Determination Meets the Impregnable Fortress of Territorial
Integrity: A Cautionary Fairy Tale about Clashes in Kosovo and
Elsewhere’, Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law (28)
(1999–2000), pp. 1–8, at p. 1; Samuel K. N. Blay, ‘Self-Determination
   

Versus Territorial Integrity in Decolonization’, New York University

Journal of International Law and Policy 18 (1985–6), pp. 441–72, at
p. 441; Christian Tomuschat, ‘Secession and Self-Determination’, in
M. Kohen (ed.), Secession: International Law Perspectives, Cambridge:
 

Cambridge University Press, 2006.

26. Burkina Faso/Mali, ICJ Reports, 1986, pp. 554, 565.
27. Antonio Cassese, Self-Determination of Peoples: A Legal Reappraisal,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 12.
28. See Ian Brownlie, ‘An Essay in the History of the Principle of Self-
Determination’, in C. H. Alexandrowicz (ed.), Grotian Society Papers:
   

Studies in the History of the Law of Nations, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,
1970.
29. See, for example, Joseph V. Stalin, Marxism and the National and Colonial
 

Question: A Collection of Articles and Speeches, London: Lawrence &

Wishart, 1942, esp. a pamphlet written in 1913: Marxism and the
National Question.
30. See Cassese, Self-Determination of Peoples, p. 16.
31. See chapter III of the RSFSR Constitution: ‘Article 4. Expressing firm
determination to wrest mankind from the clutches of finance capital
and imperialism, which have in this most criminal of wars drenched
the world in blood, the Third Congress of Soviets unreservedly
endorses Soviet policy of denouncing the secret treaties, organizing
most extensive fraternization with the workers and peasants of the
combatant armies and achieving at all costs by revolutionary means a
democratic peace for the working people, without annexations of
indemnities, on the basis of free self-determination of nations. …
Article 6. The Third Congress of Soviets supports the policy of the
Council of People’s Commissars, which has proclaimed the complete
independence of Finland, commenced the withdrawal of troops from
Persia, and proclaimed freedom of self-determination for Armenia.’
Full text available at http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/
const/1918toc.html, last accessed 22 December 2016. Also see, in
 

general, William B. Simons (ed.), The Constitutions of the Communist

 

World, Alphen aan den Rijn: Sijthoff & Noordhoff, 1980.

32. Lenin, ‘Theses on the Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations
to Self-Determination’, pp. 143–56; see point 3: The Meaning of the
Right of Self-Determination and its Relation to Federation.

427
pp. [162–164] Notes
33. See Lenin, ‘Theses on the Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations
to Self-Determination’, point 5: ‘To single out one of the demands of
political democracy, namely, the self-determination of nations, and to
oppose it to all the rest, is fundamentally wrong in theory. In prac-
tice, the proletariat will be able to retain its independence only if it
subordinates its struggle for all the democratic demands, not exclud-
ing the demand for a republic, to its revolutionary struggle for the
overthrow of the bourgeoisie.’
34. See Cassese, Self-Determination of Peoples, p. 19.
35. See Theodore S. Woolsey, ‘Self-Determination’, American Journal of
 

International Law 13 (1919), pp. 302–5, at p. 302; Michla Pomerance,

‘The United States and Self-Determination: Perspectives on the
Wilsonian Conception’, American Journal of International Law 70 (1976),
pp. 1–27, at p. 1.
36. See Cassese, Self-Determination of Peoples, p. 19.
37. See President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, especially points
9–13, database of the University of Yale, Avalon Project, The
Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, available at http://ava-
lon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp, last accessed 19 July  

2015.
38. McNamara, The Hashemites, p. 98.
39. For further context and background see the dynamic analysis by
Wolfgang Danspeckgruber (Founding Director of the Liechtenstein
Institute on Self-Determination at Princeton University and Professor
at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International
Affairs), ‘Self-Determination: Introduction/Definition, Historical
Evolution, Theoretical Implications and Practical Applications’, avail-
able at https://pesd.princeton.edu/?q=node/266, last accessed
15 March 2017.
 

40. President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, point 5: ‘A free, open-

minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims,
based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all
such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations con-
cerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the gov-
ernment whose title is to be determined.’
41. Cassese, Self-Determination of Peoples, p. 22.
42. See, generally, Nawaz, ‘The Meaning and Range of the Principle of
Self-Determination’.
43. For a list of League-based efforts in this regard see Sergey Sayapin,
The Crime of Aggression under International Criminal Law: Historical
Development, Comparative Analysis and Present State, The Hague: TMC
Asser Press, 2014.

428
 notes pp. [164–166]
44. Unfortunately, the absolute prohibition of the use of force was not
included in the Covenant of the League of Nations; only the proce-
dure that the members of the League should resort to the dispute-
resolution mechanism was established. See articles 10–16 of the
Covenant.
45. The Charter of the United Nations, available at https://treaties.
un.org/doc/publication/ctc/uncharter.pdf, last accessed 15 March  

2017.
46. B. M. Dattani, ‘Populism and the International Law of Self-
   

Determination: Charting the Emergence of Populist Legal Movements

from South Africa to Palestine’, Palestine Yearbook of International Law
18, 1 (2016), pp. 92–114.
47. Text of the Atlantic Charter, reprinted in International Conciliation 21
(1942–3), p. 384.
48. ‘To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the
principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take
other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace.’
49. ‘With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being
which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations
based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determina-
tion of peoples, the United Nations shall promote: a) higher standards
of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social
progress and development; b) solutions of international economic,
social, health, and related problems; and international cultural and
educational cooperation; and c) universal respect for, and observance
of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction
as to race, sex, language, or religion.’ The principle of self-determi-
nation is recognized not only within the UN Charter, but also in
numerous other multilateral and bilateral agreements. See for exam-
ple article 2 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, 22 May 2004,  

reprinted in International Human Rights Report 12 (2005), 893, entered

into force 15 March 2008.
 

50. ‘The United States and the Recognition of Israel: A Chronology’,

Compiled by Raymond H. Geselbracht from Harry S. Truman and the
   

Founding of Israel (Westport, CT, 1997) by Michael T. Benson, avail-

 

able at http://www.trumanlibrary.org/israel/palestin.htm, last

accessed 19 July 2015.
 

51. Until it suspended its operations in 1994 following the independence

of Palau (the last remaining UN trust territory), according to the UN,
the ‘main goals of the [Trusteeship] System were to promote the
advancement of the inhabitants of Trust Territories and their progres-
sive development towards self-government or independence.’ See for

429
pp. [168–169] Notes
added background the relevant UN page titled ‘Trusteeship Council’,
available at http://www.un.org/en/sections/about-un/trusteeship-
council/index.html, last accessed 16 March 2017.
 

52. GA Res. 1514 (XV), at 67, UN Doc. A/4684 (14 December 1960)
 

(‘All people have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that

right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their
economic, social, and cultural development’). The legal ammendments
introduced by this seminal resolution, in a way, also further highlight
the paradigm shift and stark contrast to the framework existing in the
1920s, a framework that left The Hijaz simultaneously trapped and
exposed, due to the malleability of the then nascent international law
at the hands of the global and regional powers, who were trying to
tailor and employ the framework to advance their imperial interests.
53. See, for instance, Thomas M. Franck, The Structure of Impartiality:
 

Examining the Riddle of One Law in a Fragmented World, New York:

Macmillan, 1968; Thomas M. Franck, Fairness in International Law and
 

Institutions, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

54. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, ‘International Law and the Development
Encounter: Violence and Resistance at the Margins’, Proceedings of the
Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law 93 (1999),
pp. 16–27, at p. 16.
55. This deals with the options that should be included in a ballot to be
undertaken by those about to exercise their right to self-determina-
tion in the colonial and non-self-governing context. See Declaration
on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and People,
GA Res. 1514 (XV), UN Doc. A/4684; Declaration on Principles of
International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-Operation
among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations,
GA Res. 2625 (XXV), UN Doc. A/8028.
56. As it is generally accepted, the traditional context of the principle of
self-determination has to be understood in such a manner that the
principle ‘fits in with the concept of territorial integrity, as it cannot
apply once a colony or trust territory attains sovereignty and inde-
pendence’: Malcolm Shaw, International Law, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2008, p. 523.
57. For a discussion of internal and external self-determination, see ibid.,
p. 191.
58. GA Res. 2625 (XXV).
59. See Marc Weller, Escaping the Self-Determination Trap, Leiden and Boston:
Martinus Nijhoff, 2008, p. 80. See also Ghassan al-Jundi, Iqtitaf al-Zahr
wa Ijtina’ al-Thamr fi Haq al-Shu‘ub fi Taqrir al-Masir [Harvesting the
right of self-determination of populations], Amman: al-Sharq, 2016,
p. 97.

430
 notes pp. [169–173]
60. See Article 25, which states: ‘Indigenous peoples have the right to
maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with
their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, ter-
ritories, waters and coastal seas and other resources and to uphold
their responsibilities to future generations in this regard’: United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, GA Res.
61/295 of 2007, Un Doc. A/RES/61/295.
61. Weller, Escaping the Self-Determination Trap, p. 30.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid., p.  31.
64. Ibid., p.  32.
65. Catriona Drew, ‘The East Timor Story: International Law on Trial’,
European Journal of International Law 12, 4 (2001), pp. 651–84, at
pp. 651, 673.
66. See for example the report of the ILC to the General Assembly, which
states: ‘The principle of self-determination, proclaimed in the Charter
of the United Nations as a universal principle, had been applied mainly
in eradicating colonialism, but there were other cases in which it had
been and could and should be used. By not tying it exclusively to
colonial contexts, it would be applied much more widely. In that con-
nection, all members of the Commission believed that the principle
of self-determination was of universal application’: Yearbook of
International Law Commission, 1988, vol. II, part II, p. 64, full text avail-
able at http://legal.un.org/ilc/publications/yearbooks/index.shtml,
last accessed 19 June 2015.
 

67. Marc Weller, ‘The Self-Determination Trap’, Ethnopolitics 4, 1 (March

2005), pp. 3–28, at p. 27.
68. Ibid.: ‘It is necessary to escape from the current self-determination
trap, either by engineering new forms of co-governance within states
or by accepting that secession cannot, in the end, be ruled out if other
options do not suffice.’
69. James Crawford, The Creation of States in International Law, 2nd edn,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 46.
70. Edward Heath Robinson, ‘The Involuntary Extinction of States: An
Examination of the Destruction of States through the Application of
Military Force by Foreign Powers since the Second World War’, Journal
of Military Geography 1 (2011), pp. 17–29, at p. 17.
71. Ibid., p.  19.
72. Ibid., pp.  19–20.
73. Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of
Independence in Respect of Kosovo, Advisory Opinion, ICJ Reports
2010: ‘The Court is not required by the question it has been asked

431
pp. [173–176] Notes
to take a position on whether international law conferred a positive
entitlement on Kosovo unilaterally to declare its independence or, a
fortiori, on whether international law generally confers an entitlement
on entities situated within a State unilaterally to break away from it.
Indeed, it is entirely possible for a particular act—such as a unilateral
declaration of independence—not to be in violation of international
law without necessarily constituting the exercise of a right conferred
by it’ (p. 403, para. 56).
 

74. Crawford, The Creation of States in International Law, p. 55.

75. Christian Tomuschat (ed.), Modern Law and Self-Determination, London:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1993, p. 6.
76. Ibid., p.  7.
77. Ibid.
78. Brian Littlefair, ‘Letting it All Come Down’, Dissident Voice, 2012, avail-
able at http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/02/letting-it-come-down/, last
accessed 10 December 2014.
 

79. Reference Re Secession of Quebec [1998] 2 SCR 217, para. 112,

reprinted in International Law Reports, vol. 115, p. 536.
80. Ibid., para. 126.
81. Ibid., para. 132.
82. Ibid., para. 133.
83. GA Res. 1514 (XV) 1960, para. 2.
84. Drew, ‘The East Timor Story’, pp. 651, 674.
85. Principle VI of GA Res. 1514 (XV) 1960.
86. Namely: (1) maintain current position (status quo); (2) implement the
recommendations of the Commission on Scottish Devolution (the
‘Calman recommendations’); (3) full devolution while remaining in
the UK (‘devolution max’); and (4) independence. See the 2009 White
Paper, full text available at http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2009/
11/26155932/0, last accessed 18 March 2017.
 

87. Drew, ‘The East Timor Story’, pp. 651, 663.

88. Christine Chinkin, ‘The East Timor Case (Portugal v. Australia)’,
International and Comparative Law Quarterly 45, 3 (1996), pp. 712–25,
at pp. 712, 724–5.
89. Tom Sparks, ‘Scottish Independence Insta-Symposium: The International
Legal Significance of the Scottish Independence Referendum—A Long
View’, Opinio Juris, available at http://opiniojuris.org/2014/09/17/
scottish-independence-insta-symposium-international-legal-significance-
scottish-independence-referendum-long-view/, last accessed 3 April  

2017.
90. See, for example, Václav Klaus, as cited in ‘Václav Klaus Addresses the
UN for the Last Time as President’, Masha Volynsky, Radio Praha
2012, available at http://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/vaclav-

432
 notes pp. [177–179]
klaus-addresses-the-un-for-the-last-time-as-president, last accessed
31 March 2017.
 

91. See Max Weber, ‘The Three Types of Legitimate Rule’, Berkeley

Publications in Society and Institutions 4, 1 (1958). pp. 1–11, available at
https://www.scribd.com/document/320086819/Max-Weber-
The-Three-Types-of-Legitimate-Rule.
92. Marc Weller, ‘Why the Legal Rules on Self-Determination Do Not
Resolve Self-Determination Disputes’, in M. Weller and B. Metzger
   

(eds.), Settling Self-Determination Disputes: Complex Power-sharing in Theory

and Practice, Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff (2008), pp. 20–2.
93. See Weller, Escaping the Self-Determination Trap; Kalana Senaratne,
‘Beyond the Internal/External Dichotomy of the Principle of Self-
Determination’, Hong Kong Law Journal 43 (2013), pp. 463–96, at
p. 463; James Summers, ‘The Internal and External Aspects of Self-
Determination Reconsidered’, in D. French (ed.), Statehood and Self-
 

Determination: Reconciling Tradition and Modernity in International Law,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
94. Cassese, Self-Determination of Peoples, esp. pp. 101–40.
95. See for example the Resolutions of the UN General Assembly regard-
ing Southern Rhodesia (GA Res. 31/154 A of 20 December 1976,
 

SC Res. 460 of 21 December 1979) and South Africa (SC Res. 417
 

of 31 October 1977, GA Res. 41/101 of 4 December 1986).

   

96. See the report of the international conference of experts organized

by the UNESCO Division of Human Rights, Democracy and Peace
and the UNESCO Centre of Catalonia: Report of the International
Conference of Experts Held in Barcelona from 21 to 27 November  

1998, full text available at http://unpo.org/article/446, last accessed

19 July 2015.
 

97. See the discussion on the Quebec secession which describes the notion
of remedial secession when dealing with the conditions put before the
court. It envisions three circumstances that give rise to it: (a) where
‘a people’ is governed as part of a colonial empire; (b) where ‘a peo-
ple’ is subject to alien subjugation, domination, or exploitation; and
possibly (c) where ‘a people’ is denied any meaningful exercise of its
right to self-determination within the state of which it forms a part.
See ‘Supreme Court of Canada: Reference Re Secession of Quebec’,
International Legal Materials 37, 6 (1998), pp. 1340–77, available at
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20698849, last accessed 2 April 2017.
 

98. As examples of South Africa, Namibia, or Algeria liberation move-

ments, see al-Jundi, Iqtitaf al-Zahr wa Ijtina’ al-Thamr fi Haq al-Shu‘ub
fi Taqrir al-Masir, pp. 36–48.
99. From GA Res. 2625 (XXV).

433
pp. [179–180] Notes
100. Report Presented to the Council of the League of Nations by the
Commission of Rapporteurs, League of Nations Doc. B.7.21/68/106,
16 April 1921, p. 28.
 

101. The full text of the 24 October 1970 Declaration on Principles of

   

International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation

among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations
(A/RES/25/2625) is available at http://www.un-documents.net/
a25r2625.htm, last accessed 19 March 2017.
 

102. ‘All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that

right they freely determine their political status, and freely pursue
their economic, social and cultural development. … In accordance
with the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning
Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with
the Charter of the United Nations, this shall not be construed as
authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or
impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity
of sovereign and independent States conducting themselves in com-
pliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of
peoples and thus possessed of a Government representing the whole
people belonging to the territory without distinction of any kind’:
Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, Adopted by the World
Conference on Human Rights in Vienna on 25 June 1993, full text
 

available at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/
Vienna.aspx, last accessed 19 July 2015.
 

103. Jure Vidmar, Democratic Statehood in International Law, Oxford and

Portland: Hart Publishing, 2013, p. 144.
104. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights stated: ‘In
the absence of concrete evidence of violations of human rights to the
point that the territorial integrity of Zaire should be called to ques-
tion and in the absence of evidence that the people of Katanga are
denied the right to participation in Government as guaranteed by
Article 13(1) of the African Charter, the Commission holds the view
that Katanga is obliged to exercise a variant of self-determination
that is compatible with the sovereignty and territorial integrity of
Zaire’: Katangese Peoples’ Congress vs. Zaire, African Commission
on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Comm. No. 75/92, 1995, para. 6.
105. Vidmar, Democratic Statehood in International Law, p. 149.
106. See UN Doc S/RES/661 (6 August 1990), preamble.
 

107. Shafeeq Ghabra, ‘Democratization in a Middle Eastern State: Kuwait’,

Middle East Policy 3, 1 (1994), pp. 102–19, at p. 102.
108. Reference re Secession of Québec (1998) 2 SCR 217 (Canada),
reprinted in 115 ILR 536.

434
 notes pp. [180–182]
109. Ibid., para. 126.
110. Ibid., para. 133.
111. See for instance Allen E. Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-
 

Determination, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 335: ‘If the

state persists in serious injustices toward a group, and the group’s
forming its own independent political unit is a remedy of last resort
for these injustices, then a group ought to be acknowledged by the
international community to have a claim-right to repudiate the
authority of the state and to attempt to establish its own indepen-
dent political unit.’
112. See for instance Vidmar, Democratic Statehood in International Law,
p. 161: ‘The underlying idea of remedial secession, that is, ending
the oppression directed against a certain people, can still influence
the recognition policies of some states.’
113. See Weller, Escaping the Self-Determination Trap, chapter 9, ‘Supervised
Independence’.
114. See Marc Weller, Contested Statehood: Kosovo’s Struggle for Independence,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
115. Brownlie, ‘An Essay in the History of the Principle of Self-
Determination’, p. 90.
116. Vidmar, Democratic Statehood in International Law, p. 153.
117. See the report of the international conference of experts organized
by the UNESCO Division of Human Rights in Barcelona from 21 to
27 November 1998, ‘The Implementation of the Right To Self-
 

Determination as a Contribution to Conflict Prevention’, full text

available at http://www.unpo.org/article/446, last accessed
1 November 2017.
 

118. Cassese, Self-Determination of Peoples, p. 101.

119. Thomas Franck, ‘The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance’,
American Journal of International Law 86, 1 (1992), pp. 46–91, at p. 46.
See also p. 90: ‘The entitlement to democracy in international law
has gone through both a normative and a customary evolution. It has
evolved both as a system of rules and in the practice of states and
organisations. This evolution has occurred in three phases. First came
the normative entitlement to self-determination. Then came the nor-
mative entitlement to free expression as a human right. Now we see
the emergence of a normative entitlement to a participatory elec-
toral process. The democratic entitlement, despite its newness,
already enjoys a high degree of legitimacy, derived both from vari-
ous texts and from the practice of global and regional organisations,
supplemented by that of a significant number of nongovernmental
organisations. These texts and practices have attained a surprising

435
pp. [182–186] Notes
degree of specificity, given the newness of the entitlement and espe-
cially of its requirement for free and open elections.’
120. See D. Feldman, ‘Constitutionalism, Deliberative Democracy and
 

Human Rights’, in J. Morison, K. McEvoy, and G. Anthony (eds.),

     

Judges, Transition, and Human Rights, Oxford Scholarship Online, 2012;

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199204939.003.0020 p. 458. Cited
with the permission of the author.
121. H.-J. Heintze, ‘Territorial Autonomy and International Stability: Pros
 

and Cons from the Viewpoint of International Law’, in Z. A. Skurbaty    

(ed.), Beyond a One-Dimensional State, Boston and Leiden: Martinus

Nijhoff, 2005, p. 53.
122. See N. Hashemi and D. Postel, Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics
   

of the Middle East, London: Hurst, 2017; J. R. Williams, ‘Your    

Questions about the Hajj Stampede, Answered’, Brookings Blogs,

Markaz, available at http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/
posts/2015/09/29-hajj-stampede-explainer-williams, last accessed
19 February 2016 (the article contains detailed references to a series
 

of incidents drawing from Al-Jazeera and the New York Times, among
others).
123. See S. Wolff, ‘Complex Autonomy Arrangements in Western Europe:
 

A Comparative Analysis of Regional Consociationalism in Brussels,

Northern Ireland and South Tyrol’, in M. Weller and S. Wolff (eds.),
   

Autonomy, Self-Governance and Conflict Resolution: Innovative Approaches to

Institutional Design in Divided Societies, London and New York:
Routledge, 2005.
124. T. Benedikter, ‘The Working Autonomies in Europe: An Overview
 

and Schematic Comparison’, available at http://www.hunsor.se/dos-

szie/working_autonomies.pdf, last accessed 19 July 2015.  

125. Such as in the case of the autonomy of Hong Kong, for example.

126. See, generally, Ronald L. Watts, ‘Asymmetrical Decentralization:
 

Functional or Dysfunctional?’, Indian Journal of Federal Studies 5, 1

(2004), pp. 1–42; M. Weller and K. Nobbs (eds.), Asymmetric
   

Autonomy and the Settlement of Ethnic Conflicts, Philadelphia: Penn Press,

2010.
127. See H. Hannum, ‘Territorial Autonomy: Permanent Solution or Step
 

toward Secession’, in Z. A. Skurbaty (ed.), Beyond a One-Dimensional

   

State, Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 2005.

128. Article 2 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Spain. Passed by the
Cortes Generales in Plenary Meetings of the Congress of Deputies
and the Senate held on 31 October 1978. The full text available is
 

in English at the database of the OSCE Office for Democratic

Institutions and Human Rights, accessible in PDF format at http://

436
 notes pp. [186–187]
www.legislationline.org/documents/id/20089, last accessed 19 March 

2017.
129. The initial period of autonomy was described in the following terms:
‘During the initial years of the AC’s model, Catalan institutions were
governed by moderate nationalist parties with a desire to further
develop their self-government, but not to break away from Spain. In
2003, and taking advantage of a favourable Socialist Government at
the central level (as of 2004), the Catalan parties initiated a process
of reform of their Statue of Autonomy, with a double aim: first, to
further expand their competences to the maximum allowed by the
Constitution, and at the same time to resolve some of the problems
with the system; and second, to provide for a better recognition of
their specific Catalan national identity within the statutory frame-
work’: Elisenda Casanas Adam, ‘The Independence Referendum and
Debates on Catalonia’s Constitutional Future’, Tijdschrift voor
Constitutioneel Recht 1 (2014), pp. 162–71, at p. 163.
130. Spanish Constitutional Court, Judgment 31/2010, 28 June 2010.  

Recurso de inconstitucionalidad 8045–2006. Available at http://boe.

es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2010–11409, last accessed 19 July  

2015.
131. See Casanas Adam, ‘The Independence Referendum’, p. 164: ‘The
Constitutional Court’s decision largely left the AC’s, and Catalonia
in particular, at a crossroads: as a result of the Court devaluating the
role of the Statutes of Autonomy in completing the very open con-
stitutional framework, not only had Catalonia’s main avenue for
improving their self-government been blocked, but the key elements
of its autonomy had been left at the discretion of the central legis-
lature. The decision also damaged the faith of the institutions and cit-
izens of Catalonia in the Constitutional Court as a mediator between
both levels of government.’
132. Declaration on Sovereignty and the Right to Decide of the People of
Catalonia (Declaració de sobirania i el dret a decidir del poble de
Catalunya), issued on 23 January 2013, Parliament of Catalonia, avail-
 

able at http://www.parlament.cat/actualitat/R5_X_sobirania.pdf,
last accessed 19 July 2015.
 

133. Spanish Constitutional Court, Judgment 42/2014, 25 March 2014,

 

full text available at http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2014/04/10/

pdfs/BOE-A-2014–3885.pdf, last accessed 19 July 2015.
 

134. On 19 September 2014, the Catalan parliament approved a call for

 

a referendum on independence.
135. Spanish Constitutional Court, 29 September 2014, available at
 

http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2014/09/30/pdfs/BOE-A-2014–9864.
pdf, last accessed 19 July 2015.
 

437
pp. [187–191] Notes
136. For a detailed analysis in English see ‘Why the Referendum on
Catalan Independence is Illegal’, The Economist, 26 September 2017,
 

available at https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/
2017/09/economist-explains-17. For the official decision as published
in the Spanish State Bulletin, see https://www.boe.es/boe/
dias/2017/09/08/pdfs/BOE-A-2017–10287.pdf, last accessed
11 November 2017.
 

137. See Sam Jones, Stephen Burgen, and Emma Graham-Harrison, ‘Spain

Dissolves Catalan Parliament and Calls Fresh Elections’, The Guardian,
28 October 2017, available at https://www.theguardian.com/
 

world/2017/oct/27/spanish-pm-mariano-rajoy-asks-senate-
powers-dismiss-catalonia-president
138. See Marta García Barcia, ‘Catalonia: The New European State?’, ILSA
Journal of International and Comparative Law 20, 3 (2013–14), pp. 399–
420, at p. 399.
139. All quotations in this sentence are drawn fromc Weller, Escaping the
Self-Determination Trap, pp. 84–8.
140. Weller, Escaping the Self-Determination Trap, p. 145: ‘Often, opting for
autonomy is tied to an abandonment of claims to self-determination.
Or, rather, one might say that these settlements can be taken as exer-
cising the self-determination claim at the internal level. Once it has
exercised this option, self-determination may no longer be regarded
as a viable argument for the entity concerned, unless the arrange-
ment is changed unilaterally by the central government.’
141. In this regard, see Chapters 5, 6, and 7.
142. See the discussion on pp. 172–9 above, esp. pp. 172–3.
143. See pp. 14–15 above.
144. See, in general, Cedric Ryngaert, ‘The Legal Status of the Holy See’,
Goettingen Journal of International Law 3, 3 (2011), pp. 829–59;
G. Arangio-Ruiz, ‘On the Nature of the International Personality of
 

the Holy See’, Revue Belge de Droit International 29 (1996),

pp. 355–69.
145. See Interpretation of the Statute of the Memel Territory, PCIJ,
Judgment of 11 August 1932 (AB/49).
 

146. Yoram Dinstein, ‘Autonomy (International Guarantees of Autonomy)’,

in Z. A. Skurbaty (ed.), Beyond a One-Dimensional State, Boston and
   

Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2005, p. 247.

147. Ibid., p.  248.
148. Carsten Stahn, The Law and Practice of International Territorial
Administration, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 7.
149. Ibid., p.  26.
150. See Ralph Wilde, International Territory Administration, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2010, pp. 191–232.

438
 notes pp. [191–196]
151. Lauri Hannikanen, ‘Self-Determination and Autonomy in International
Law’, in Markku Suksi (ed.), Autonomy: Applications and Implications,
The Hague: Kluwer, 1998, p. 88.
152. Examples include the Holy See, the Sovereign Military Order of
Malta, and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
153. See Chapter 5.
154. Point 7: To call a general Islamic congress in Makkah to execute the
desires of Islamic nations and to decide upon means that guarantee
the comfort of the pilgrims, and the protection of their interest in
The Hijaz so long as they are not incompatible with the sovereignty
of the country: FO 967/55 Local Government. Dabbagh Conspiracy
(1933); see discussion in Chapter 8.
155. See discussion regarding erga omnes norms in Case concerning East
Timor (Portugal v. Australia) ICJ Rep. 1995.
 

156. See, for instance, the NATO bombing of Serbia, which was justified,
inter alia, in defence of the right of return of Bosnian Muslims,
whereas this right is merely the focus of peace negotiations between
Israelis and Palestinians.
157. Weller, Escaping the Self-Determination Trap, p. 157.
158. Vidmar, Democratic Statehood in International Law, p. 153.
159. Ibid., p.  201.
160. For the actual constitutional provisions and the legal framework for
the ‘Holy Mountain’ see Section VI, Chapter III, Article 105, ‘Regime
of Aghion Oros’ (Mount Athos) of the Hellenic Constitution. The
constitution of the Hellenic Republic is available online at http://
www.hri.org/docs/syntagma/. These provisions have been respected
in the multilateral treaties concerning the relevant national laws.
Indicatively, in the League of Nations (League of Nations Treaty
Series, vol. 9, no. 173, Article 14), with important provisions regard-
ing minority rights (see, indicatively, League of Nations communica-
tion no. C.354.1934.I., available as a PDF from the UN archive:
http://biblio-archive.unog.ch/Dateien/CouncilDocs/C-354–1934-I_
EN.pdf). Lastly, specific provisions for Mount Athos have been also
included in the relevant EU acquis. See for example the Schenghen
acquis, Joint Declaration no. 5, CELEX: 42000A0922(06), Official
Journal L 239, 22/09/2000, P. 0083–0089, available at http://eur-
 

lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:42000
A0922(06)&from=EN
161. For context and a discussion of the significance of the Athos case vis-
à-vis Jerusalem see Silvio Ferrari, ‘The Religious Significance of
Jerusalem in the Middle East Peace Process: Some Legal Implications’,
Catholic University Law Review 45, 3 (1996), pp. 733–43. For a schol-

439
pp. [196–199] Notes
arly, comprehensive Greek analysis and additional legal context see
Charalambos K. Papastathis, ‘Religious Self-Administration in the
 

Hellenic Republic’, in Gerhard Robbers (ed.), Church Autonomy: A

Comparative Survey, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2001, available at
https://www.religlaw.org/content/blurb/files/Chapter%2020.%20
Papastathis.pdf
162. For detailed analyses and background see Joseph Y. S. Cheng (ed.),
   

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in its First Decade, Hong
Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2007.
163. For practical reasons, we borrow here a definition which summarizes
the different terms and their meaning, and what we more broadly
refer to as ‘Vatican’ in this section: ‘Holy See, Vatican City, Catholic
Church, Pope’. ‘In everyday usage, the term Vatican usually refers to
the territorially defined Vatican City State or the Roman Curia as its
administrative apparatus (in the narrow sense also the buildings
around Saint Peter’s Square in Rome). But in foreign policy report-
ing, the term is also frequently used for the Holy See, which is the
actual subject in international law. “Vatican” is therefore a collective
term.’ See Christian E. Rieck and Dorothee Niebuhr, ‘Microstate and
 

Superpower: The Vatican in International Politics’, Konrad Adenauer

Stiftung International Reports 10 (2015), available at http://www.kas.
de/wf/en/33.43202/, last accessed 3 June 2017.
 

164. Jodok Troy, ‘The Catholic Church and International Relation’, Oxford

Handbooks Online, 2016, available at http://www.oxfordhandbooks.
com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935307.001.0001/oxfordhb-
9780199935307-e-2, last accessed 3 June 2017.
 

165. Nor is this the appropriate context in which to attempt such an in-

depth study; it is something, however, that subsequent research can
address with a view to draw lessons and parallels which can advance
this first discussion further, for the benefit of research and an inter-
national system in need of more ‘unifying voices’.
166. There are several resources to consult on the topic. See Dana
C. Munro, ‘The Popes and the Crusades’, Proceedings of the American
 

Philosophical Society 55, 5 (1916), pp. 348–356 (mainly on the

Crusades–Holy Wars); David Alvarez, The Pope’s Soldiers: A Military
History of the Modern Vatican, Lawrence: Kansas University Press, 2011;
Richard Abels, ‘Timeline for the Crusades and Christian Holy War
to c.1350’, US Naval Academy, 2009, available at https://www.usna.
edu/Users/history/abels/hh315/crusades_timeline.htm, last accessed
3 June 2017.
 

167. The Crusades unfolded for two centuries, from 1095 to 1291. Also,
importantly, not all Crusades were against Muslims (non-Christians).

440
 notes pp. [199–201]
For instance, the Fourth Crusade was eventually directed against the
(Christian Orthodox) Byzantine Empire.
168. Munro, ‘The Popes and the Crusades’, p. 352.
169. The Papal States and the papal armed forces came to an end in 1870
with the advance of Napoleon III into the Kingdom of Italy and the
regions belonging to the Church. See ‘1870 End of Papal State’,
Swiss Guards, 2013, http://www.guardiasvizzera.va/content/guar-
diasvizzera/en/storia/1870-fine-dello-stato-pontificio.html, last
accessed 3 June 2017.
 

170. See Mariano Barbato, ‘A State, a Diplomat, and a Transnational

Church: The Multi-Layered Actorness of the Holy See’, Perspectives:
Review of International Affairs 21, 2 (2013), pp. 27–48; Rieck and
Niebuhr, ‘Microstate and Superpower’.
171. This is something that we raise in this chapter with respect to The
Hijaz—that, in a way, the world, and especially the Muslim world,
needs to help The Hijaz manage the Hajj optimally and construc-
tively. Also, interestingly, the Vatican has passed the ‘monopoly of
force’ (law enforcement) to Italy; in the same way, we propose that
the national oversight authority and umbrella of security remains the
responsibility of Saudi Arabia in the case of The Hijaz.
172. For an interesting present day-discussion see Alan Chong, ‘The
Catholic Church in International Politics, E-International Relations’,
available at http://www.e-ir.info/2013/11/14/the-catholic-church-
in-international-politics/, last accessed 6 June 2017.
 

173. As we have described the complex and multi-layered challenges asso-

ciated with the root causes of extremism, the role of the ‘negative
space’, and the asymmetric processes that account for a concerning
level of Islamophobia and deep-rooted lack of understanding vis-à-
vis Islam and its core values and meaning (see earlier chapters, and
also esp. chapter 7).
174. Or rather, through the expansion of the current framework.
175. Including, notably, a Memorandum of Understanding with the Arab
League since 2009.
176. ‘Note on the Diplomatic Relations of the Holy See, 09.01.2017’,
Summary of Bulletin, Holy See Press Office, 2017, available at
http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/
pubblico/2017/01/09/170109b.html, last accessed 3 June 2017.
 

177. ‘The Pope to the Members of the Diplomatic Corps: Peace is a Gift,

a Challenge and a Commitment, 09.01.2017’, Summary of Bulletin,
Holy See Press Office, 2017, available at http://press.vatican.va/con-
tent/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2017/01/09/170109a.html,
last accessed 3 June 2017.
 

441
pp. [202–209] Notes
178. Pope Francis, Speech to the Diplomatic Corps, 9 January 2017; full
 

text available at http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bol-

lettino/pubblico/2017/01/09/170109a.html, last accessed 3 June  

2017.

7.  GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES: IDEOLOGY AND STATEHOOD

1. See David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds, London: I. B.Tauris,
   

2013. The Kurds often suggest that they are the world’s largest ethnic
group without a state of their own. The recent territorial changes in
Iraq and Syria and the Kurdish role and influence in the emerging land-
scape are potentially game-changing. On 25 September 2017 the Kurds
 

of Iraq indicated for the second time in the last twelve years that they
wish to be free of the rest of the country in a non-binding indepen-
dence referendum. There was a 72 per cent turnout, with 92 per cent
       

of those voting opting for independence. In spite of the referendum’s

non-binding nature, as discussed in Chapter 6, once openly seeking self-
determination with wide popular support, the situation becomes com-
plicated. It is even more complicated in the case of Iraqi Kurdistan,
given the balance of power on the ground and the economic and mil-
itary sway the ethnic group commanded by the end of 2017. For addi-
tional context, and up-to-date scholarly analyses on the Iraqi Kurdistan
case and its broader implications, see Bill Park et al., ‘On the
Independence Referendum in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Disputed
Territories in 2017’, Kurdish Studies 5, 2 (2017), pp. 199–214. See also
Krzysztof Strachota and Józef Lang, ‘Iraqi Kurdistan—the Beginning of
a New Crisis in the Middle East? OSW Commentary, No. 247, 2017–
08–08’, 2017, Archive of European Integration, available at http://aei.
pitt.edu/88842/1/commentary_247.pdf; Joost Hiltermann, ‘What Did
the Kurds Get Out of the Referendum?’ The Atlantic, 27 September
 

2017, available at https://www.theatlantic.com/international/

archive/2017/09/kurds-iraq-barzani-isis-referendum/541260/, last
accessed 3 November 2017.
 

2. In fact, in 2013 the BBC placed the number of armed opposition groups
in Syria close to a thousand: see http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
middle-east-24403003; Charles Lister, The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the
 

Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency, London: Hurst, 2015.

3. Karen Yourish, Derek Watkins, Tom Giratikanon, and Jasmine C. Lee,  

‘How Many People Have Been Killed in ISIS Attacks around the
World?’, New York Times, 25 March 2016, available at https://www.
 

nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/25/world/map-isis-attacks-around-
the-world.html, last accessed 22 June 2017.
 

4. Ibid.

442
 notes pp. [210–213]
5. See, for context, Kevin Uhrmacher and Mary Beth Sheridan, ‘The
Brutal Toll of Boko Haram’s Attacks on Civilians’, Washington Post,
3 April 2016, available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph-
 

ics/world/nigeria-boko-haram/, last accessed 21 June 2017.

 

6. See Stig Jarle Hansen, Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of
 

a Militant Islamist Group, New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

7. See Global Terrorism Index 2015, Institute for Economics and Peace,
available at http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2017/04/2015-
Global-Terrorism-Index-Report.
8. See US Department of State Annual Report on Global Terrorism 2016,
available at https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2016/272235.htm#
IRAN
9. Joseph Chinyong Liow, ‘ISIS in the Pacific: Assessing Terrorism in
Southeast Asia and the Threat to the Homeland’, Brookings Testimony,
2016, available at https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/isis-in-the-
pacific-assessing-terrorism-in-southeast-asia-and-the-threat-to-the-home-
land/, last accessed 21 June 2017.
 

10. Robert Verkaik, Jihadi John: The Making of a Terrorist, London: Oneworld,

2016, p. 239.
11. Cynthia Kroet, ‘UN: 30,000 Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq: The
Risk of Attacks in Countries of Origin is Growing, Top Official Says’,
Politico, 5 July 2016, available at http://www.politico.eu/article/
 

united-nations-30000-foreign-fighters-in-syria-and-iraq-isil-terrorism/,
last accessed 21 June 2017. 

12. See ‘An Updated Assessment of the Flow of Foreign Fighers into Syria
and Iraq’, Soufan Group, December 2015, available at http://soufan-
group.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/TSG_ForeignFighters
Update3.pdf, last accessed November 2017.
13. Ibid.
14. See US Department of State Annual Report on Global Terrorism 2016.
15. Including a number of US lists. In fact, it was still considered one of
the pre-eminent sources of terrorist financing until the late 2000s. See
Rob Hastings, ‘Saudi Arabia is “Biggest Funder of Terrorists”’, The
Independent, 6 December 2010, available at http://www.independent.
 

co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-is-biggest-funder-of-ter-
rorists-2152327.html, last accessed 22 June 2017.
 

16. For additional context on terrorism financing see Eben Kaplan,

‘Tracking Down Terrorist Financing’, Council on Foreign Relations,
2016, available at https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/tracking-down-
terrorist-financing, last accessed 22 June 2017.
 

17. See Martin Chulov, ‘I Will Return Saudi Arabia to Moderate Islam,

 

says Crown Prince’, The Guardian, 24 October 2017, available at

 

443
pp. [218–221] Notes
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/24/i-will-return-saudi-arabia-
moderate-islam-crown-prince, last accessed 1 November 2017.
 

18. For a detailed critique of the shortcomings of the League of Nations

see Frederick Samuel Northedge, The League of Nations: Its Life and
Times, 1920–1946, Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1986. For a
very critical 1940s account of the UN see Leland M. Goodrich, ‘From
 

League of Nations to United Nations’, International Organization 1, 1

(1947), pp. 3–21.
19. ‘United Nations Trusteeship Council’, available at http://www.un.org/
en/sections/about-un/trusteeship-council/index.html, last accessed
16 May 2017.
 

20. Which at the time also included what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh.
21. See, for example, Lawrence James, Raj: The Making and Unmaking of
British India, London: Abacus, 2010. Notably, the British personnel in
India consisted of only around 100,000 police, civil, and military
officials.
22. For a very interesting quantitative discussion of decolonization see
David Strang, ‘From Dependency to Sovereignty: An Event History
Analysis of Decolonization 1870–1987’, American Sociological Review
55, 6 (1990), pp. 846–60. Strang suggests that there are various fac-
tors explaining the phenomenon, but the sunset of colonization appears
to be strongly linked to changes in the global system and the role of
the UN; also the position, role, and activity of the USA, as well as
symbolic moments in the course of decolonization which completely
delegitimized the imperial powers.
23. In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s this movement also included promi-
nent actors from the developing world who often played a key role
in the UN and were involved in important votes.
24. See William Roger Louis and Roger Owen (eds.), Suez 1956: The Crisis
and its Consequences, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989; William
M. Wright et al., ‘A Conflict Analysis of the Suez Canal Invasion of
 

1956’, Conflict Management and Peace Science 5, 1 (1980), pp. 27–40, at

pp. 27–31.
25. For additional context see Israel Gershoni, The Emergence of Pan-Arabism
in Egypt, Tel Aviv: Shiloah Centre for Middle Eastern and African
Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1981; Robert Eugene Danielson, ‘Nasser
and Pan-Arabism: Explaining Egypt’s Rise in Power’ Master’s thesis,
Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey California, 2007, available at
https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/3381/danielson07.
pdf?sequence=3. For a critical assessment see Fouad Ajami, ‘The End
of Pan-Arabism’, Foreign Affairs 57, 2 (1978), pp. 355–73.
26. For an interesting up-to-date account on Nasser, which also bridges

444
 notes pp. [221–223]
the gap between the Nasserist period and its legacy and contempo-
rary events, including the dynamic ‘return of Islam’ in Egyptian polit-
ical life during the Arab Spring, see Tarek Osman, Egypt on the Brink:
From Nasser to the Muslim Brotherhood, New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2013.
27. See Charles Davis Cremeans, The Arabs and the World: Nasser’s Arab
Nationalist Policy, Praeger Paperbacks 117, Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger,
for the Council on Foreign Relations, 1963.
28. William L. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, 2nd edn,
 

Boulder: Westview Press, 2000, p. 297.

29. Ibid., p.  289.
30. Tarik Kafala, ‘The Iraqi Baath Party’, BBC, 25 March 2003, available
 

at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2886733.stm, last
accessed 11 June 2017; John Major, ‘The Search for Arab Unity’,
 

International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 194–) 39,

4 (1963), pp. 551–63, at p. 556.
31. Peter Mansfield, ‘Nasser and Nasserism’, International Journal 28, 4
(1973), pp. 670–88.
32. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 316.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., p. 325. See also John Galvani, ‘Syria and the Baath Party’, MERIP
Reports 25 (1974), pp. 3–16.
35. Laksmi Pamuntjak, ‘It is 50 Years since the Indonesian Genocide of
1965 but we Cannot Look Away’, The Guardian, 30 September 2015,
 

available at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/
sep/30/it-is-50-years-since-the-indonesian-genocide-of-1965-but-
we-cannot-look-away, last accessed 16 May 2017.
 

36. Roger Owen, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle
East, London and New York: Routledge, 1992, p. 37.
37. Ibid., p.  31.
38. Iraq was created as a Mandate under Sykes–Picot.
39. De Gaulle had promised Syria an end to the Mandate System in 1941.
By 1943 Shukri al-Kuwatli was elected Syria’s first president, and he
had led the country to full independence by 1946.
40. ‘Definition of Baathism’, available at https://www.merriam-webster.
com/dictionary/Baathism, Merriam-Webster 2017, last accessed
16 May 2017.
 

41. Efforts to capture the exact equivalent or meaning in English vary—

some like Devlin translate it as ‘resurrection’, while it has also been
referred to as ‘rebirth’ or ‘renaissance’.
42. John F. Devlin, ‘The Baath Party: Rise and Metamorphosis’, American
 

Historical Review 96, 5 (1991), pp. 1396–1407.

445
pp. [223–228] Notes
43. Ibid., p.  1396.
44. Major, ‘The Search for Arab Unity’, p. 556.
45. Amatzia Baram, ‘Baathi Iraq and Hashimite Jordan: From Hostility to
Alignment’, Middle East Journal 45, 1 (1991), pp. 51–70, at p. 51.
46. Ibid.
47. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 293.
48. Owen, State, Power and Politics, 3rd edn (2004), p. 23.
49. For an in-depth analysis see Roger Owen, The Rise and Fall of Arab
Presidents for Life, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.
50. Gaddafi ruled Libya for forty-two years until his violent overthrow in
2011.
51. See Owen, State, Power and Politics, 3rd edn.
52.  Ibid., p. 40.
53. Ibid., p.  41.
54. Malika Zeghal, ‘Religion and Politics in Egypt: The Ulema of al-Azhar,
Radical Islam, and the State (1952–94)’, International Journal of Middle
East Studies 31, 3 (1999), pp. 371–99, at p. 373.
55. To delve deeper in this discussion see ibid., pp. 373–6.
56. Ibid., p.  376.
57. Ibid., p. 380. Interestingly, as we shall discuss later, al-Azhar played a
key role in the development of revivalist ideology. In a way the (Sunni)
revivalist current was born in Egypt, and al-Azhar was instrumental
in this current within Islam.
58. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 324. See also Nurit
Kliot, ‘The Collapse of the Lebanese State’, Middle Eastern Studies 23,
1 (1987), pp. 54–74.
59. Kliot, ‘The Collapse of the Lebanese State’. See also Michael
C. Hudson, The Precarious Republic Revisited: Reflections on the Collapse of
 

Pluralist Politics in Lebanon, Washington, DC: Institute of Arab

Development, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown
University, 1977.
60. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 324.
61. R. Stephen Humphreys, Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in
 

a Troubled Age, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001, p. 74.

62. See Erika G. Alin, The United States and the 1958 Lebanon Crisis: American
 

Intervention in the Middle East, Lanham, MD: University Press of

America, 1994; Agnes G. Korbani, US Intervention in Lebanon, 1958 and
 

1982: Presidential Decisionmaking, New York: Praeger, 1991.

63. See, for example, Ritchie Ovendale, ‘Great Britain and the Anglo-
American Invasion of Jordan and Lebanon in 1958’, International
History Review 16, 2 (1994), pp. 284–303.
64. For additional background see Donald Hawley, The Trucial States,

446
 notes pp. [228–232]
London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970; Husain M. Albaharna, The 

Legal Status of the Arabian Gulf States: A Study of their Treaty Relations and
their International Problems, Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1968.
65. IOR/R/15/2/32. See also Jacob Goldberg, ‘The Origins of British–
Saudi Relations: The 1915 Anglo-Saudi Treaty Revisited’, Historical
Journal 28, 3 (1985), pp. 693–703.
66. In some ways, the independence, sovereignty, and self-determination
of The Hijaz and the Trucial coast was traded for the safeguarding of
British imperial interests in the Gulf and the region, and the recogni-
tion of the third Saudi state and its new, expanded borders (in 1915
and 1927 respectively).
67. For context see Rosemarie Said Zahlan, The Origins of the United Arab
Emirates: A Political and Social History of the Trucial States, London:
Routledge, 2016.
68. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, pp. 226–7.
69. See Rachel Bronson, Thicker than Oil: America’s Uneasy Partnership with
Saudi Arabia, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 19–20.
70. Ibid., p.  14.
71. See Aaron David Miller, Search for Security: Saudi Arabian Oil and
American Foreign Policy, 1939–1949, Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1980.
72. James G. Mellon, ‘Pan-Arabism, Pan-Islamism and Inter-State Relations
 

in the Arab World’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 8, 4 (2002), pp. 1–15,

at pp. 4–5.
73. See Tim Niblock, Saudi Arabia: Power, Legitimacy and Survival, London
and New York: Routledge, 2004, esp. pp. 38–45 and 47–66; Scott
Shane, ‘Saudis and Extremism: “Both the Arsonists and the
Firefighters”’, New York Times, 25 August 2016, available at https://
 

www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-islam.
html, last accessed 8 August 2017.
 

74. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 228.

75. Humphreys, Between Memory and Desire, p. 76.
76. Which in a way, allowed Jordan to pass as ‘unthreatening’.
77. For a detailed account see Philip Robins, A History of Jordan,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004 (esp. chs. 4 and 5).
78. For a comprehensive account see Nigel Ashton, King Hussein of Jordan:
A Political Life, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008.
79. Humphreys, Between Memory and Desire, p. 76.
80. See Ashton, King Hussein of Jordan.
81. Humphreys, Between Memory and Desire, p. 77.
82. Ibid.

447
pp. [232–237] Notes
83. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 322.
84. See, for example, Robins, A History of Jordan, p. 143 (and ch. 7
generally).
85. Dirk Vandewalle, A History of Modern Libya, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2012, pp. 24–40.
86. Ibid., pp.  34–68.
87. Gaddafi’s politico-ideological crux was concentrated in his so-called
Green Book, which he claimed to have conceived whilst in the Libyan
desert. See Muammar Gaddafi, The Green Book, Reading: Ithaca Press,
1999.
88. See Susan Gilson Miller, A History of Modern Morocco, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2013 (chs. 4 and 5).
89. Ibid.
90. Ibid., pp.  174–80.
91. Ibid.
92. On a different note, regarding regional balances, Moroccan–Libyan
antagonisms were a complicating factor in MENA politics, often with
particularly tense relations between the king of Morocco and Libya’s
long-standing military dictator, Muammar Gaddafi.
93. For a definition of Kemalism see Mete Tunçay, ‘Kemalism’, in The
Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, Oxford Islamic Studies Online,
available at http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t236/
e0440, last accessed 8 July 2017.
 

94. Meaning ‘father of the Turks’.

95. See Alexander Lyon Macfie, Atatürk, London and New York:
Routledge, 2014.
96. See Erik J. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, London: I. B. Tauris,
     

2004, esp. part II.

97. See Macfie, Atatürk, esp. ch. 8.
98. With the teaching of Arabic generally restricted to religious schools.
99. Notably, the secularization of Turkey was enshrined in the country’s
constitution, removing the clause that retained Islam as the state’s
religion.
100. See George McGhee, The US–Turkish–NATO Middle East Connection:
How the Truman Doctrine and Turkey’s NATO Entry Contained the Soviets,
London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990.
101. The key moment of international tension in this period was the 1974
Turkish invasion of Cyprus, which led to a short period of interna-
tional ‘distancing’—isolation of the biggest regional power until
1978.
102. Notably, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had spent his formative years at
the Le Rosey School in Switzerland, before receiving a political and
military education in Iran.

448
 notes pp. [237–241]
103. Such as the traditional landowners.
104. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 280.
105. For an authoritative account on the composition, different layers, and
drivers of the opposition to the Shah in the period studied see
Ervand Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1982, esp chs. 6–10.
106. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 280.
107. Ibid., p.  281.
108. See Ervand Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 123–54.
109. Shahrough Akhavi, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran, New York:
State University of New York Press, 1980, pp. 60–117.
110. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, pp. 282–3.
111. Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, pp. 267–80.
112. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 284.
113. Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, pp. 419–25.
114. Ibid., pp.  450–80.
115. Ibid., pp.  473–80.
116. Roham Alvandi, ‘Nixon, Kissinger, and the Shah: The Origins of
Iranian Primacy in the Persian Gulf’, Diplomatic History 36, 2 (2012),
pp. 337–72, at p. 338.
117. See, for example, James Risen, ‘Secrets of History: The CIA in Iran’,
Special Report, New York Times, 16 April 2000, available at http://
 

www.nytimes.com/2000/04/16/world/secrets-history-cia-iran-spe-
cial-report-plot-convulsed-iran-53–79.html, last accessed 6 August,
 

2017.
118. Euro-Atlantic integration was of course facilitated through geograph-
ical realities incomparable to Iran’s—most importantly proximity to
Europe, the vitality of Western or NATO control of the Bosporus
Straits, and the crucial buffer of the West’s south-eastern European,
Caucasus, and Mediterranean borders. In other words, the Turkish
experience was heavily influenced by the need of the USA and its
allies to safeguard vital geostrategic and security interests at one of
the key epicentres of intersection between the two global spheres of
influence.
119. Cleveland’s observation is rather striking: ‘The Turkish armed forces
intervened in the political system to resolve parliamentary deadlock
and economic turmoil, not to perpetuate military rule’: Cleveland,
A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 292. See also Owen, State, Power
and Politics, p. 217.
120. See, for example, Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, pp. 473–
80.

449
pp. [241–242] Notes
121. See, for example, Theda Skocpol, ‘Rentier State and Shi’a Islam in
the Iranian Revolution’, Theory and Society 11, 3 (1982), pp. 265–83.
122. See, for example, John L. Esposito (ed.), The Iranian Revolution: Its
 

Global Impact, Miami: Florida International University Press, 1990;

Nikki R. Keddie and Eric James Hooglund, The Iranian Revolution and
 

the Islamic Republic, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1986.

Moreover, see Ray Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the
World in the Age of the Ayatollahs, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009; Michael Axworthy, Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic
Republic, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
123. Note the dramatic inflationary pressures, which tend to hit the low-
est earners in societies the most.
124. This was a single political vehicle whose purpose was greater social
penetration: to cut deep across society and, particularly, help increase
information, monitoring, and control over social groups that main-
tained a degree of autonomy—especially the ‘ulama’ and the bazaar
merchants.
125. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 411.
126. Skocpol, ‘Rentier State and Shi’a Islam in the Iranian Revolution’,
p. 267. With respect to education, there seems to be a near consen-
sus that it played a key role in mobilizing the youth, who were
increasingly aware of and irate with the skewed nature and damag-
ing structure of the Shah’s social, political, and economic model.
Also, strikingly, the Westernized urban professionals were also a key
pressure group—reacting to oppression. Lastly, with respect to the
‘pace of change’, one could add that this rapid change that was being
advanced was largely discordant with society and its preferences. It
was this gap between popular sentiment and the central government’s
direction that, given the pace of the advanced changes, produced the
powerful socio-political backlash.
127. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 412.
128. Arguably, the main reason the Shah toned down his repression was
to protect his vital Western ties, which were coming under pressure
in the face of mounting international pressure.
129. According to Abrahamian, ‘[Shariati’s] ideas were far better known
than those of Ayatollah Khomeini. Shari‘ati, therefore, can truly be
characterized as the ideologue of the Islamic Revolution’: Ervand
Abrahamian, ‘Ali Shariati: Ideologue of the Iranian Revolution’, MERIP
Reports 102 (1982), pp. 24–8, at p. 28.
130. Ibid.
131. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 413.
132. Khomeini, Islamic Government.

450
 notes pp. [243–247]
133. Cleveland summarized this very particular journey and revolution as
follows: ‘An unarmed popular revolution inspired and guided by an
elderly member of the religious establishment had toppled the king
of kings and brought an end to the Pahlavi dynasty [1925–79]’:
Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 417.
134. Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution, esp. part I; Michael Axworthy, A
History of Iran: Empire of the Mind, New York: Basic Books, 2016,
pp. 259–82; Akhavi, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran,
pp. 159–86.
135. Axworthy, Revolutionary Iran, pp. 133–86.
136. See Mohsen M. Milani, The Making of Iran’s Islamic Revolution: From
 

Monarchy to Islamic Republic, Boulder: Westview Press, 1988.

137. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p. 420.
138. See, for context, Michael Sterner, ‘The Iran–Iraq War’, Foreign Affairs
63, 1 (1984), pp. 128–43. For a comprehensive, more recent,
account see Rob Johnson, The Iran–Iraq War, New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011.
139. As we shall see, Islamic revival is not exclusive to the Shi’a, the
Sunni, the Wahhabi and so forth; nor is it always progressive, open,
and positive.
140. Ludwig Paul, ‘“Iranian Nation” and Iranian-Islamic Revolutionary
Ideology’, Die Welt des Islams 39, 2 (1999), pp. 183–217.
141. Yaroslav Trofimov, ‘1979: Remembering “The Siege of Mecca”:
Upheaval in the Muslim World, 30 Years Ago’, NPR, 2009, available
at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11205
1155, last accessed 9 April 2017.
 

142. Ibid.
143. Ibid.
144. Frederic M. Wehrey, The Forgotten Uprising in Eastern Saudi Arabia,
 

Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,

2013. See also Toby Craig Jones, ‘Rebellion on the Saudi Periphery:
Modernity, Marginalization, and the Shia Uprising of 1979’,
International Journal of Middle East Studies 38, 2 (2006), pp. 213–33.
145. Possibly in an attempt to address, satisfy, and appease the conserva-
tive revivalist pressures.
146. See Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, The United Arab Emirates: Power, Politics
and Policy-Making, London and New York: Routledge, 2017.
147. See Christopher Michael Davidson, The United Arab Emirates: A Study
in Survival, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2005.
148. Frauke Heard-Bey, Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates and the Gulf
Region: Fifty Years of Transformation, Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2017,
pp. 188–98.

451
pp. [247–251] Notes
149. Also note that UAE–Iranian relations have been further strained by
a territorial dispute over three Persian Gulf islands (Abu Musa and
the Greater and Lesser Tunbs). See Sean Foley, ‘The UAE: Political
Issues and Security Dilemmas’, Middle East Review of International
Affairs 3, 1 (1999), pp. 25–45.
150. The Arab community in the British Palestine Mandate.
151. With the addition of Kuwait, Algeria, South Yemen, Oman, Qatar
and the United Arab Emirates, Mauritania, Somalia, and Palestine.
152. Specifically, Sadat’s peace agreement with Israel in 1979 led to
Egypt’s ten-year suspension from the League until its readmission in
1989.
153. For a detailed introductory account see Cris E. Toffolo, The Arab
 

League, New York: Chelsea House, 2008.

154. In 1976 the League, in another crucial decision, had authorized the
formation and deployment of a peacekeeping force in Lebanon.
155. For a detailed chronology see ‘Timeline: Arab League’, BBC News,
Middle East, 2011, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_
east/country_profiles/1550977.stm, last accessed May 30 2017.
156. MEDEA Institute, ‘The Maghreb Arab Union’, 2017, available at
http://www.medea.be/en/countries/arab-world-general/maghreb-
arab-union-mau/, last accessed 31 May 2017.
 

157. For a comprehensive analysis see Mohamed Finaish and Eric Bell, The
Arab Maghreb Union, IMF Working Paper WP/94/55, Washington,
DC: IMF, 1994, pp. 1–56.
158. MEDEA Institute, ‘The Maghreb Arab Union’.
159. For instance, when in 1998 Libya’s authoritarian ruler, Muammar
Gaddafi, founded an opposing body, the Community of Sahel and
Saharan States (CEN-SAD), an African grouping of states which
showed promise, the MAU cause seemed of little ongoing value and
relevance.
160. OPEC’s stated purpose, as cited in ‘Our Mission’, Organisation of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries, 2017, available at http://www.
opec.org/opec_web/en/about_us/23.htm, last accessed 30 May  

2017.
161. Initially in Geneva.
162. As quoted in ‘Brief History’, Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries, 2017, http://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/about_us/24.
htm, last accessed 7 August 2017.
 

163. For an in-depth analysis of this period see Ian Skeet, Opec: Twenty-Five
Years of Prices and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991, pp. 35–92.
164. For a critical analysis see René D. Zentner, ‘OPEC: Cartel or
 

452
 notes pp. [252–256]
Chimaera?’ in Ragaei El Mallakh (ed.), OPEC: Twenty Years and Beyond,
London: Croom Helm, 1982, pp. 95–112.
165. ‘About OIC’, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, 2017, available
at http://www.oicun.org/2/23/, last accessed 30 May 2017.
 

166. Including military cooperation with the Palestine Liberation

Organization (PLO).
167. With the OIC emerging therefore, in a way, as the ‘Islamic bloc’ in
the UN.
168. For additional context and analysis see Turan Kayaoglu, The
Organization of Islamic Cooperation: Politics, Problems, and Potential,
London and New York: Routledge, 2015; Ihsanoglu, The Islamic World
in the New Century.
169. See for example the Iranian involvement in the 1981 attempted coup
in Bahrain.
170. Yoel Guzansky, ‘Defence Cooperation in the Arabian Gulf: The
Peninsula Shield Force Put to the Test’, Middle Eastern Studies 50, 4
(2014), pp. 640–54, at p. 641.
171. Ibid., at pp. 642–3. The Peninsula Shield Force has been an impor-
tant milestone in Gulf defence cooperation and a critical GCC com-
ponent. In spite of the occasional tensions and differences, it remains
in the interest of all the GCC countries to maintain it.
172. For a succinct presentation of the key headline(s) of the thirty-four
GCC Summit Conclusions from 1981 to 2015 see ‘GCC Timeline’,
Saudi–US Relations Information Service, 2015, available at http://
susris.com/timelines/gcc-timeline/, last accessed 30 May 2017.
 

173. It is worth remembering that the EU has also been an ongoing pro-
cess, and one where integration has advanced in an unsystematic way
over the course of the past seven decades.
174. From the USA and the UK to Israel.
175. Ivor Lucas, ‘The Middle East and the Cold War’, Cambridge Review of
International Affairs 7, 1 (1993), pp. 12–20, at p. 12.
176. Picking sides and bargaining its support.
177. Notably, the West historically had a better footing in the Middle East.
The competition therefore between the West and the USSR in the
region was never one of equals. For context see Salim Yaqub, ‘The
Cold War and the Middle East’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Cold
War (2013) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
178. And therefore, of course, its own agenda and interests—from natu-
ral resources to military bases and the security of Israel.
179. Lucas, ‘The Middle East and the Cold War’, p. 14.
180. With the partial exception of Yemen, which founded a pariah ‘com-
munist’ state that had no autonomous capacities and remained heav-
ily reliant on Eastern Bloc aid.

453
pp. [256–259] Notes
181. Lucas, ‘The Middle East and the Cold War’, p. 13.
182. Ibid.
183. Alan Taylor, ‘The Soviet War in Afghanistan, 1979–1989’, The Atlantic,
4 August 2014, available at https://www.theatlantic.com/
 

photo/2014/08/the-soviet-war-in-afghanistan-1979–1989/100786/,
last accessed 26 May 2017.
 

184. Jimmy Carter, cited in Steve Galster, ‘Afghanistan: The Making of US

Policy, 1973–1990’, US National Security Archive, available at
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/essay.html, last
accessed 27 May 2017.
 

185.  Ibid., p. 7.

186. BBC, ‘Timeline: Soviet war in Afghanistan’, BBC News, 17 February
 

2009, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7883532.stm, last

accessed 27 May 2017.
 

187. Tanks, air force, heavy artillery, battalions, and so forth.

188. Certain US accounts suggested that the Soviet invasion was a mani-
festation of the Brezhnev Doctrine, ‘which held that once a country
became socialist Moscow would never permit it to return to the cap-
italist camp’. See US Department of State, ‘The Soviet Invasion of
Afghanistan and the US Response, 1978–1980’, Office of the
Historian, Milestones: 1977–1980, available at https://history.state.
gov/milestones/1977–1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan, last accessed
27 May 2017. Other accounts, however, such as that of MacEachin,
 

suggest particular caution on the part of the Soviet premier, who

repeatedly suggested to the Politburo that it was ‘not the right time’
for full-scale engagement. See Douglas MacEachin, ‘Predicting the
Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: The Intelligence Community’s Record’,
available at https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-
intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/predicting-the-
soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan-the-intelligence-communitys-record/
predicting-the-soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan-the-intelligence-commu-
nitys-record.html#link8, last accessed 27 May 2017.
 

189. In fact, at that time, Soviet resolve and the US withdrawal seemed
to suggest that the USSR was gaining notable ground in the global
arm-wrestle. Meanwhile, the USA seemed to be suffering losses on
multiple fronts.
190. Which, as discussed earlier, soon deprived The Hijaz and the Holy
Lands of their most critical functions: as the pre-eminent forum for
the exchange of ideas; the resolution of theo-ideological differences;
the open and dynamic interpretation of sacred texts; the prevention
of sectarian differences, misunderstandings, and tensions; and a pow-
erful tangible reminder of the need for all religious schools to coex-
ist in peace and dialogue under core Islamic principles and values.

454
 notes pp. [259–260]
191. For a detailed study see Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad
 

Went Global, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

192. For instance, US president Jimmy Carter’s covert action programme,
which began in 1979, channelled its aid and medical assistance to the
rebels through Pakistan. Then, two weeks after the invasion, again
with the Pakistani authorities serving as the channel, the first US
arms started reaching the Mujahideen (mainly in the form of Enfield
rifles). See Charles G. Cogan, ‘Partners in Time: The CIA and
 

Afghanistan since 1979’, World Policy Journal 10, 2 (1993), pp. 73–82,

at p. 76.
193. See Steve Coll, ‘Anatomy of a Victory: CIA’s Covert Afghan War’,
Washington Post, 19 July 1992, available at https://www.washington-
 

post.com/archive/politics/1992/07/19/anatomy-of-a-victory-cias-
covert-afghan-war/1bd10b14-a0cc-441c-99cc-d2b5d1ba6e2d/?utm_
term=.4c8bf38d4454, last accessed 28 May 2017.
 

194. It is worth keeping a note of this element here; it ties with the ear-
lier points raised vis-à-vis the Saudi Arabian efforts to spread pan-
Islamism, in the age of pan-Arabism, as an ideo-political counter-
weight. It is also important to reiterate the kingdom’s particular
advantage in sustaining its ideo-religious views and their export
abroad through its oil wealth (see spread of Wahhabism, for exam-
ple, and its penetration in Pakistan).
195. Cogan, ‘Partners in Time’, p. 76.
196. In fact, arguably, America’s tactics and ambitions in the 1978–9 con-
text (purported diplomatic efforts with Hafizullah Amin of the PDPA)
were among the triggers of the invasion—heightening Soviet fears
and solidifying their resolve to intervene (adding to the USSR cal-
culus the dimension of denying the advancement of the US agenda).
197. According to Cogan, for instance, the US U-2 base at Peshawar was
a particularly important investment and asset. See Cogan, ‘Partners
in Time’, p. 75. Importantly, a young man (then), named Osama Bin
Laden, inspired by pan-Islamism, was finding his way to the Peshawar
base too, shortly after the beginning of the Soviet invasion, together
with his religious teacher, to join the Afghan resistance fighters in
the ‘holy war’ against the ‘infidel’ imperialist invaders. Whilst they
did not join the fighting they engaged in rallying financial support
for the war effort and stepped up the ‘internationalisation of the jihad
efforts’—globally recruiting young Muslims for the cause.
198. With particular importance attached to US satellite reconnaissance.
199. According to Coll, this was the tipping point, when the Reagan
administration adopted Decision Directive 166 to ‘sharply escalate
US covert action in Afghanistan’, through ‘an array of US high tech-
nology and military expertise’: Coll, ‘Anatomy of a Victory’.

455
pp. [260–263] Notes
200. A figure ‘on the low side’, according to Cogan. See Cogan, ‘Partners
in Time’, p. 77.
201. Coll, ‘Anatomy of a Victory’. There is an interesting background here
with regard to the escalation of US-led assistance to the jihadi reb-
els. The US intelligence suggested that the Soviet escalation and new
tactics employed since 1984, with the deployment of additional
Special Forces and targeted anti-guerrilla resources (especially heli-
copter assaults), were working, and that there was a perception that
they might be approaching a decisive victory.
202. Providing and training the rebels in the use of the latest US hard-
ware, from heavy weapons to CIA-supplied plastic explosives—to
increase the effectiveness and deadliness of the guerrilla resistance.
203. Coll, ‘Anatomy of a Victory’.
204. Ibid.
205. The ‘Anything But Communism’ paradigm. See for instance the dis-
cussion in Andrew Hartman, ‘“The Red Template”: US Policy in
Soviet-Occupied Afghanistan’, Third World Quarterly 23, 3 (2002),
pp. 467–89, at pp. 468–9.
206. Ibid., p.  467.
207. Galster, ‘Afghanistan: The Making of US Policy, 1973–1990’.
208. With its grave cost—not just in terms of resources, but also of image
and symbolism.
209. Cogan, ‘Partners in Time’, p. 74.
210. Due to Great Power and imperial competitions, such as the Russo-
British; but also the British imperial divide-and-rule policies, associ-
ated with the dissection of British-controlled India, most famously in
the case of Afghanistan, with the 1893 Durant Line, which effectively
cut the Pashtun territories in half.
211. Namely, the bisection of Afghanistan: the northern ‘Central Asian’
part with its Eurasian–Caucasus links; and the southern half—pre-
dominantly Pashtun, the ruling ethnic group ‘dynasty’ since the mid-
eighteenth century. Notably, Afghan Pashtun made up between 30
and 50 per cent of the country’s total population.
   

212. Cogan, ‘Partners in Time’, p. 75.

213. More than four years of heavy civil fighting ensued, especially in the
1992–6 period.
214. BBC, ‘Who are the Taliban?’ BBC World News, 26 May 2016, avail-
 

able at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-11451718, last

accessed 28 May 2017.
 

215. Ahmed Rashid, ‘The Taliban: Exporting Extremism’, Foreign Affairs

(November/December 1999), pp. 22–35, at p. 26.
216. ‘The Taliban: Mapping Militant Organisations’, Stanford University,

456
 notes pp. [263–266]
2016, available at http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/
cgi-bin/groups/view/367, last accessed 28 May 2017.
 

217. This was ‘largely due to their success in stamping out corruption,

curbing lawlessness and making the roads and the areas under their
control safe for commerce to flourish.’ See BBC, ‘Who are the
Taliban?’.
218. Zachary Laub, ‘The Taliban in Afghanistan’, Backgrounder, Council
of Foreign Relations, 4 July 2014, available at https://www.cfr.org/
 

backgrounder/taliban-afghanistan, last accessed 28 May 2017.

 

219. Ibid.
220. Emran Qureshi, ‘Taliban’, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World,
Oxford Islamic Studies Online, available at http://www.oxfordislam-
icstudies.com/article/opr/t236/e0895, last accessed May 28 2017.
221. Ibid.
222. BBC, ‘Who are the Taliban?’.
223. Pakistan was also the last country to break diplomatic ties with the
Taliban.
224. It was, after all, part of their promise when pursuing power: peace,
security, and stability, to be sustained through ‘their own austere ver-
sion of Sharia’. See BBC, ‘Who are the Taliban?’.
225. See Qureshi, ‘Taliban’; BBC, ‘Who are the Taliban?’.
226. Rashid, ‘The Taliban’, p.  26.
227. In Afghanistan, as Rashid observes, following the Soviet–Afghan war
and the rise of the Taliban, their version of Islam, in the hands of its
militant leaders and their followers, had stopped being an instrument
for cohesion and common progress; in its perverse and radical rein-
terpretations, it had become an instrument for ‘othering processes’
and sectarian tensions, and the fuel for continually renewed ‘Islamic
militantism’.
228.  He had also lost his right eye in the battles.
229. Laub, ‘The Taliban in Afghanistan’.
230. Ibid.
231. Which would be, in some ways, ‘borderless’ or ‘beyond borders’ and
traditional territorial conceptions. This gave it a key distinction from
the relentless, pragmatic, systematic advancement of DA’ISH’s terri-
torial bid for statehood and the establishment of a Caliphate.
232. On the basis that these were ‘idols’.
233. A parallel can be drawn to the destruction of Palmyra by DA’ISH. See 

Qureshi, ‘Taliban’.
234. For example, his claim to be wearing the cloak of the prophet in a
public appearance. See ibid.
235. Ibid.

457
pp. [266–270] Notes
236. Rashid, ‘The Taliban’, p. 26.
237. ‘A terrorist safe haven is an area of relative security exploited by ter-
rorists to indoctrinate, recruit, coalesce, train, and regroup, as well
as prepare and support their operations. Physical safe havens are often
found in under-governed territory or crossing international bound-
aries…. [These] provide security for many senior terrorist leaders,
allowing them to plan and to inspire acts of terrorism around the
world. In most instances … areas or communities serve as terrorist
safe havens despite the government’s best efforts to prevent this.
Denying terrorists safe haven plays a major role in undermining ter-
rorists’ capacity to operate effectively, and thus forms a key element
of U.S. counterterrorism strategy as well as the cornerstone of UN
 

Security Council Resolution 1373 that was adopted in September

2001. UNSCR 1373 specifically targets terrorists’ ability to move
across international borders and find safe haven, to solicit and move
funds, and to acquire weapons; it also calls on states that do not have
laws criminalizing terrorist activity and support to enact such laws’:
US Department of State, ‘Terrorist Safe Havens’, 2005, available at
https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/65466.pdf, last
accessed 29 May 2017.  

238. Though, as discussed, they were certainly keen to benefit from it and

the umbrella of protection that Taliban Afghanistan granted them.
239. See Jason Burke, ‘Al Qaeda’, Foreign Policy 142 (2004), pp. 18–26;
Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam, London and New
York: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
   

240. Mary Habeck, ‘What does Al Qaeda Want?’, Foreign Policy 6 March  

2012, http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/03/06/what-does-al-qaeda-
want/, last accessed 6 April 2017.
 

241. BBC, ‘Timeline: al-Qaeda’, BBC News, Special Reports, 7 August  

2008, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7546355.stm, last

accessed 29 May 2017.  

242. Ibid.
243. The ‘state’ would encompass Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and
Palestine, while the Caliphate would re-establish control in the ter-
ritories once held by the Ottoman Empire and would encompass
(among others) the Greater Middle East, North Africa, Spain, and
considerable parts of south-eastern Europe.
244. Itai Zehorai, ‘The World’s 10 Richest Terrorist Organizations’, Forbes
Business, 12 December 2014, available at https://www.forbes.com/
 

sites/forbesinternational/2014/12/12/the-worlds-10-richest-terror-
ist-organizations/#64ecb9f14f8a, last accessed 29 May 2017. Note
 

that by Zehorai’s estimates, DA’ISH had reached an annual turnover

in excess of $2 billion (possibly $3 billion).

458
 notes pp. [270–273]
245. Ibid.
246. For a more extensive, critical analysis and comparison see Charles
Lister, ‘Jihadi Rivalry: The Islamic State Challenges al-Qaida’,
Brookings Doha Center, 27 January 2016, available at https://www.
 

brookings.edu/research/jihadi-rivalry-the-islamic-state-challenges-
al-qaida/
247. This is crucial. Zelin has analysed the significance of Bin Laden’s
background for al-Qaida’s reach, assessing it comparatively with the
DA’ISH experience and the background and role of Zarqawi (poor,
uneducated, criminal past). See Aaron Y. Zelin, ‘The War between
 

Isis and al-Qaeda for Supremacy of the Global Jihadist Movement’,

Research Notes 20, 1, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (2014),
pp. 1–11. A year after 9/11, in a critical analysis of the US failure
to prevent the catastrophic terrorist attack, Bruce Hoffman charac-
terized Bin Laden as ‘Terrorism’s CEO’, offering a thorough Western
analysis of the role of al-Qaida’s leader, aims, and ambitions: Bruce
Hoffman, ‘Rethinking Terrorism and Counterterrorism since 9/11’,
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 25, 5 (2002), pp. 303–16.
248. CNN, ‘Timeline: Osama Bin Laden, over the Years’, CNN World,
Asia, 2 May 2011, available at http://edition.cnn.com/2011/
 

WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.timeline/, last accessed 29 May  

2017.
249. BBC, ‘Timeline: al-Qaeda’.
250. Sudan was in the midst of a civil war—the second Sudanese civil
war—which lasted for over two decades, from 1983 to 2005.
251. BBC, ‘Timeline: al-Qaeda’.
252. Ibid.
253. Sue Mahan and Pamala L. Griset, Terrorism in Perspective, 2nd edn,
 

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2008, p. xiv.

254. The interesting observation here being that there were two oppos-
ing wars: the global holy war launched by Bin Laden and his associ-
ates, on the one hand; and the US-led ‘War on Terror’, on the other.
In a way, the ‘war’ had truly gone global.
255. CNN, ‘Death of Osama bin Laden Fast Facts’, CNN Library, 2017,
available at http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/09/world/death-of-
osama-bin-laden-fast-facts/, last accessed 30 May 2017.
 

256. See for example the discussion in Kathy Gilsinan, ‘Five Years after
Bin Laden’s Death, al-Qaeda Lives on’, The Atlantic, 2 May 2016,
 

available at https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/
2016/05/al-qaeda-bin-laden-death/480801/, last accessed 30 May  

2017.
257. John Brennan, quoted in Habeck, ‘What Does Al Qaeda Want?’.

459
pp. [273–277] Notes
258. Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is at the top of the FBI’s Most
Wanted Terrorists list. An Egyptian-born physician, al-Zawahiri
founded the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) organization. The EIJ merged
with al-Qaida in 1998, and he then climbed the terrorist organiza-
tion’s power. See FBI, ‘Wanted: Ayman Al Zawahiri’, 2017, https://
www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/ayman-al-zawahiri, last
accessed 9 April 2017.
 

259. Habeck, ‘What Does Al Qaeda Want?’.

260. Within the context of America’s ‘unipolar moment’.
261. The former brought about by US use of force and the latter by the
international community’s ineptness.
262. Namely, Obama’s reserved approach to far-reaching foreign
interventions.
263. Others may refer to it as ‘Daesh’.
264. For additional context see Fawaz Gerges, ISIS: A History, Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2016.
265. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, ‘An Unnecessary War’,
   

Foreign Policy 134 (2003), pp. 51–9, at p. 51, available at http://

mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/A0032.pdf, last accessed 9 April  

2017.
266. Ibid., p.  59.
267. Destroying a series of world heritage sites—such as Palmyra.
268. See, for example, Jessica Stern and John M. Berger, ISIS: The State of
 

Terror, New York: HarperCollins, 2015, esp. pp. 33–53.

269. Either mass executions, to set an example and send a message to
certain groups, or targeted live executions of abducted foreign
nationals. See Stern and Berger, ISIS: The State of Terror, pp. 75–100,
199–218.
270. BBC, ‘Profile: Syria’s al-Nusra Front’, BBC News, 10 April 2013,
 

available at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-180480
33, last accessed 9 April 2017.
 

271. For additional context see Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, ‘The Dawn of

the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham’, Current Trends in Islamist
Ideology 16 (2014), pp. 5–15.
272. See Hayat Alvi, ‘The Diffusion of Intra-Islamic Violence and Terrorism:
The Impact of the Proliferation of Salafi/Wahhabi Ideologies’, Middle
East Review of International Affairs (MERIA), 18, 2 (2014), pp. 38–50.
273. For context see Adil Rasheed, ISIS: Race to Armageddon, New Delhi:
Vij Books India Pvt Ltd, 2015, pp. 27–33, 36–41; Bader al-Ibrahim,
‘ISIS, Wahhabism and Takfir’, Contemporary Arab Affairs 8, 3 (2015),
pp. 408–15.
274. Notably, the pre-eminent sources of DA’ISH’s foreign soldiers are

460
 notes pp. [277–280]
countries of the wider region. Proportionate to population, Tunisia
tops the list, followed by Saudi Arabia and Morocco. See ‘Foreign
Fighters in Iraq and Syria: Where do they Come From?’ RFE/RL
2015, available at https://www.rferl.org/a/foreign-fighters-syria-
iraq-is-isis-isil-infographic/26584940.html, last accessed 2 August
 

2017; Efraim Benmelech and Esteban F. Klor, ‘What Explains the

 

Flow of Foreign Fighters to ISIS?’ NBER Working Paper No. 22190,

Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2016.
275. For context see Stephan Rosiny, ‘The Rise and Demise of the IS
Caliphate’, Middle East Policy 22, 2 (2015), pp. 94–107, at pp. 99–100.
276. For a concise academic overview of the topic from a legal angle see
Andrew Coleman, ‘Islamic State and International Law: An Ideological
Rollercoaster’, Journal of the Philosophy of International Law 5, 2
(2014), pp. 75–08, available at https://www.peacepalacelibrary.nl/
ebooks/files/383162181.pdf, last accessed 2 August 2017.
 

277. DA’ISH had in fact published a map depicting its dark ambitions for
territorial conquest on the path to the realization of a ‘global caliph-
ate’ through a ‘global war’. See Mark Aitken, ‘ISIS Unveils Chilling
New Map of Europe as it Plans for World Domination by 2020’, The
Mirror, 9 August 2015, available at http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/
 

world-news/isis-unveils-chilling-new-map-6224227, last accessed

31 May 2017; Dan De Luce and C. K. Hickey, ‘Mapping the Spread
     

of the ISIS Plague’, Foreign Policy, 2 February 2016, http://foreign-

 

policy.com/2016/02/02/mapping-the-spread-of-the-isis-plague/, last
accessed 31 May 2017. Lastly, for a succinct discussion of DA’ISH’s
 

‘ultimate’ ambitions, see Tim Lister, ‘What Does ISIS Really Want?’
CNN, 11 December 2015, available at http://edition.cnn.
 

com/2015/12/11/middleeast/isis-syria-iraq-caliphate/, last accessed

31 May 2017.
 

278. Yourish et al., ‘How Many People Have Been Killed in ISIS Attacks
Around the World?’.

8. THE IDEOLOGICAL DRIVERS OF SUBMERGED STATEHOOD IN

THE AFTERLIFE OF THE HIJAZ
1. See Mahmood Mamdani, ‘Whither Political Islam? Understanding the
Modern Jihad’, Foreign Affairs 84, 1 (2005), pp. 148–55.
2. Ibid.
3. Stuart Notholt, Fields of Fire: An Atlas of Ethnic Conflict, Leicester:
Troubador, 2008, 4.14.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

461
pp. [280–288] Notes
6. Lister, The Syrian Jihad.
7. Ibid.
8. Noah Feldman, The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2008, p. 3.
9. See for instance Chapter 5 above.
10. Stephen M. Walt, ‘What Should we Do if the Islamic State Wins?’
 

Foreign Policy, 10 June 2015, available at http://foreignpolicy.

 

com/2015/06/10/what-should-we-do-if-isis-islamic-state-wins-
containment/
11. Hassan Farahan al-Maliki, Judhur Da’ish: Qira’a fi Turath al-Wahhabiyya
wa ‘Ulama’ al-Sa‘udi [The roots of Da’ish (ISIS): a reading in the her-
itage of Wahhabism and Saudi ‘ulama’], Beirut: Dar al-Mahajja, 2014.
12. Ibid.
13. Hassan Farahan al-Malki, Excessive Extremism Ideology (2014) [video],
p. 131.
14. Cole Bunzel, ‘From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the
Islamic State’, Brookings Project on US Relations with the Islamic
World, Analysis Paper No. 19, March 2015, available at https://www.
brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/The-ideology-of-the-
Islamic-State-1.pdf, last accessed 22 April 2017.
 

15. Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, ‘Ayman al-Zawahiri: The Ideologue of Modern

 

Islamic Militancy’, Counterproliferation Papers, Future Warfare Series

21, USAF Counterproliferation Center, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL:
Air University, 2004, p. 3.
16. Jonathan Powell, Talking to Terrorists: How to End Armed Conflict, London:
Random House, 2014.
17. The Grand Imam of al-Azhar, opening speech at the 2014 International
Conference on Confronting Terrorism and Extremism. See Al-Tayyib,
al-Azhar fi muwajahat al-fikr al-irhabi, pp. 9–16.
18. For a thorough Western viewpoint on DA’ISH’s religious–ideological
profile, its historical references, and (neo-)medieval practices see
Graeme Wood, ‘What ISIS Really Wants’, The Atlantic 315, 2 (March
2015), available at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/
2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/, last accessed 23 April 2017.
 

19. John L. Esposito, ‘Islam and Political Violence’, Religions 6, 3 (2015),

 

pp. 1067–81, at p. 1070.
20. ‘Those qualified to elect or depose a caliph on behalf of the Muslim
community. In medieval political theory, the term refers to legal schol-
ars whose task it was to offer the Caliphate to the most qualified per-
son. Because, in practice, most rulers designated their successors, the
task was generally a mere formality. Some modern thinkers have tried
to accommodate this task to that of a parliament’: ‘Ahl al-Hall wa’l-

462
 notes pp. [288–291]
Aqd’, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, Oxford Islamic Studies Online,
available at http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/
e73#, last accessed 31 May 2017.
 

21. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Min Fiqh al-Dawla fi’l Islam [From the jurisprudence
 

of state in Islam], Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1997, pp. 32–6.

22. Ibid.
23. Al-Katib, al-Fikr al-Siyasi al-Wahhabi Qir’a Tahlilih, pp. 68–72.
24. Ibid., p.  62.
25. Ibid., p.  72.
26. There are some statements issued by the Imams of the Holy Mosques
in Mecca and Medina legitimizing and supporting the call of Ibn ‘Abd
al-Wahhab and his religious views; however, al-Katib argues that such
statements were issued by coercion or ‘under the threat of the
weapon’: see al-Katib, al-Fikr al-Siyasi al-Wahhabi Qir’a Tahlilih,
pp. 81–5. See also the discussion in Natana J. Delong-Bas, Wahhabi
 

Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad, Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2008, pp. 246–7.
27. Elizabeth Sirriyeh, ‘Wahhabis, Unbelievers and the Problems of
Exclusivism’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 16, 2 (1989),
pp. 123–32, at p. 123.
28. Al-Katib, al-Fikr al-Siyasi al-Wahhabi Qir’a Tahlilih, p. 15.
29. Ibid.
30. For a more comprehensive discussion of tawhid and shirk see Delong-
Bas, Wahhabi Islam, esp. pp. 56–65.
31. For this interpretation, the role of Ibn Taymiyya’s teachings was instru-
mental, according to ibid., p. 250.
32. According to al-Katib there are two types of shirk: shirk akbar (major
shirk), which leads to exclusion from Islam, such as for instance believ-
ing in partners to God; and shirk asghar (minor shirk), which is not
enough to exclude someone from Islam because it does not harm the
essence of faith, but is rather considered a sin. See al-Katib, al-Fikr al-
Siyasi al-Wahhabi Qir’a Tahlilih, p. 16.
33. See, for example, Delong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam, p. 256.
34. Al-Katib, al-Fikr al-Siyasi al-Wahhabi Qir’a Tahlilih, pp. 31–3.
35. Entitled al-S‘iq al-Ilahiyya fi al-Radd ‘ala al-Wahhabiyya (The divine
lightning in responding to Wahhabism).
36. Ibid., p.  63.
37. M. A. al-Nadawi, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab: Muslih Mazlum wa
   

Muftra Aliyhi [Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab: an oppressed and

injured reformist], Riyadh: Wizara al-Shu‘un al-Islamiyya wa’l-Awqaf
wa’l-Da‘wa wa’l-Irshad, 1999.
38. ‘Abd al-Rahman al-‘Isami, al-Durrar al-Saniyya fı al-Ajwiba al-Najdiyya:

463
pp. [292–293] Notes
Majmu Rasa’il wa Masa’il ‘Ulama’ Najd al-A‘lam min ‘Asr al-Shaykh
Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab ila ‘Asrina [The Sparkling Pearls in Najdi
Responses; a collection of treatises and cases of the scholars of Najd
since the time of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab], Riyadh: n.p., 1994,
vol. 2, p. 100.
39. For greater context see Christopher M. Blanchard, ‘The Islamic
 

Traditions of Wahhabism and Salafiyya’, Washington, DC: Library of

Congress, Congressional Research Service, 2007, available at http://
www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA463789, last accessed
18 April 2017 (original version Febe Armanios, ‘The Islamic Traditions
 

of Wahhabism and Salafiyya’, Washington, DC: Library of Congress,

Congressional Information Service, 2003).
40. Al-Katib, al-Fikr al-Siyasi al-Wahhabi Qir’a Tahlilih, p. 24.
41. Al-‘Isami, al-Durrar al-Saniyya fı al-Ajwiba al-Najdiyya, vol. 1, p. 299.
42. Some particularly interesting—and, in a way, telling—points to keep
in mind here include: (a) the defeat of the Wahhabi–Saudi state and
their supporters was very difficult; (b) the Wahhabi–Saudi tribes
resisted effectively for years, greatly delaying the Ottoman-backed
Egyptian armies; (c) it was not until Ibrahim Pasha, with reinforce-
ments, resolve, and French assistance, intensified the campaign that
the Saudi–Wahhabi forces were cornered in Dir‘iyya; and, d) when
Dir‘iyya fell in 1818, most of the religious (Wahhabi) leaders were
executed (plus only a few of the Saud family)—which is perhaps indic-
ative of the perception of who the violent and intolerant actors or
drivers were in this equation. See Sirriyeh, ‘Wahhabis, Unbelievers and
the Problems of Exclusivism’, pp. 123–5.
43. Joas Wagemakers, ‘The Enduring Legacy of the Second Saudi State:
Quietist and Radical Wahhabi Contestations of al-Walaaʾ wa-l-Baraaʾ’,
 

   

International Journal of Middle East Studies 44, 01 (2012), pp. 93–110,

at p. 95; also available at http://doi.org/10.1017/S002074381100
1267, last accessed 15 May 2015.
 

44. See Hamad Bin Atiq, Sabil al-Najat wa’l-Fikak min Muwalat al-Murtad-
din wa’l-Atrak [Fleeing and separating from loyalty to apostates and the
Turks], Riyadh: n.p., 2002.
45. ‘Abd al-Latif ibn Hasan Al al-Shaykh, ‘Uyun al-Rasa’il wa al-Ajwibah ‘ala
al-Masa’il [Essence of the messengers and answers to the issues],
Riyadh: Maktaba al-Rashid lil Nashr wa al-Tawzi’, 1420 [1999], vol. 2,
p. 733.
46. Thomas Hegghammer, ‘Jihad, Yes, But Not Revolution: Explaining the
Extraversion of Islamist Violence in Saudi Arabia’, British Journal of
Middle Eastern Studies 36, 3 (2009), pp. 395–416, at p. 411; also avail-
able at http://doi.org/10.1080/1353 0190903338938, last accessed
20 March 2015.
 

464
 notes pp. [294–295]
47. Trevor Stanley, ‘Understanding the Origins of Wahhabism and Salafism’,
Terrorism Monitor 3, 14 (2005), available at https://jamestown.org/
program/understanding-the-origins-of-wahhabism-and-salafism/, last
accessed 19 April 2017. The Middle East today is clearly in need of
 

alternative models of political change to counter takfiri Salafism. It is

perhaps also interesting to note Stanley’s conclusion and proposed
means of addressing the ideo-religious challenge identified: ‘In the
West, education has been a major factor in social integration. But as
the Saudi case study indicates, we need to be aware of not only the
quantity, but also the nature of education. Saudi students in the 1970s
learned engineering and administration alongside an ideology of xeno-
phobic alienation. In the long run, the battle against violent Salafism
will be fought not only on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, but
also in the universities of the Middle East.’ Moreover, the fact that
Stanley traces the issue back to the Ikhwan influence in Wahhabi
thought further empowers this argument. More on the role of the
Ikhwan can be found in Chapters 4 and 5 of this book.
48. Wagemakers, ‘The Enduring Legacy of the Second Saudi State’, p. 98.
49. Abu Muhammad Essam al-Maqdisi was born in Nablus (West Bank)
in 1959. He is of Jordanian nationality and a radical Salafi cleric,
whose teachings and career have nurtured some of the most promi-
nent jihadi terrorists, including al-Qaida leaders; his work is a data-
base and source of inspiration for global jihadi extremists.
50. The Saudi invitation to 500,000 US soldiers during the Gulf War.
51. Wagemakers, ‘The Enduring Legacy of the Second Saudi State’, p. 102.
52. Jarret M. Brachman, Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice, New York:
 

Routledge, 2009, p. 47.

53. Wagemakers, ‘The Enduring Legacy of the Second Saudi State’, p. 103.
54. Marc Lynch, ‘Islam Divided between Salafi-Jihad and the Ikhwan’,
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 33, 6 (2010), pp. 467–87, at p. 475.
55. See, for instance, the discussion in Sirriyeh, ‘Wahhabis, Unbelievers
and the Problems of Exclusivism’, pp. 124–7; Delong-Bas, Wahhabi
Islam, pp. 243–4, 248, 256, 289.
56. Shaykh Mahmoud Shaltut (1893–1963) was Grand Imam of al-Azhar
and a prominent Egyptian religious scholar, who taught at al-Azhar
whose work contributed significantly towards showing that Shari’a law
is not an obstacle to modern life, but a useful guide to facilitate one’s
navigation of the modern landscape.
57. Mahmoud Shaltut, al-Qur’an wa’l-Qital [The Qur’an and fighting],
Cairo: Maktab Ithad al-Shuruk, 1948.
58. Wagemakers, ‘The Enduring Legacy of the Second Saudi State’, p. 103.
59. Abu Muhammad al-Mas’ari, al-Muwalat wa’l-Mu’adat [Loyalty and
enmity], London: Tajdeed, 2004, p. 63.

465
pp. [296–297] Notes
60. See, for example, the discussion in Asma Afsaruddin, ‘The “Islamic
State”: Genealogy, Facts, and Myths’, Journal of Church and State 48, 1
(2006), pp. 153–73, at pp. 161–5.
61. Mustafawi, Nazaryat al-Hukm wa’l-Dawla, pp. 77–8.
62. ‘Oh, verily, His is all creation and all command’ (Qur’an 7:54); ‘judg-
ment rests with none but God’ (Qur’an 6:57). See also, for further
context and discussion on these points relating to the perception of
sovereignty, Delong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam, pp. 258–9, 242, 205.
63. ‘The Prophet has a higher claim on the believers than [they have on]
their own selves, [seeing that he is as a father to them]’ (Qur’an 33:6).
64. Mustafawi, Nazaryat al-Hukm wa’l-Dawla, pp. 77–8.
65. See the discussion in Afsaruddin, ‘The “Islamic state”’, pp. 161–5.
66. Literally translated as ‘renegade’ in English. The Khawarij, or Kharijites,
believed, inter alia, that men had no right to legislate; that anyone
could serve as a caliph so long as they were righteous; and that there
was a right to revolt against any ruler who did not adhere to their
interpretation of Islam.
67. Lynch, ‘Islam Divided’, p. 472.
68. See the discussion of al-Mawdudi’s influential scholarship and work on
jahiliyya, hakimiyya, dawla, and jihad, as well as his writings on Islamic
society and ‘understanding Islam’ in Asyraf H. A. B. Rahman and
     

Nooraihan Ali, ‘The Influence of al-Mawdudi and the Jama’at Al Islami

Movement on Sayyid Qutb Writings’, World Journal of Islamic History
and Civilization 2, 4 (2012), pp. 232–6.
69. Al-Qaradawi, Min Fiqh al-Dawla fi’l Islam, pp. 63–4. Al-Qaradawi cited
Qutb’s statement regarding hakimiyya, that ‘the kingdom of God on
earth is not established on the basis of giving the hakimiyya to a cer-
tain person (i.e. religious clerics—as was the case with the church—
nor is it for those men who speak in the name of God as was the case
with what was known as “theocracy” or the sacred divine governance).
Indeed, it is based on the fact that God’s Shari’a is the one to gov-
ern, and thereby all issues should be returned to God in accordance
to what he approved in the clear Shari’a’: al-Qaradawi, Min Fiqh al-
Dawla fi’l Islam, p. 62.
70. Sayyid Qutb (1906–66) was an Egyptian writer, educator, and reli-
gious leader. His writings about Islam, and especially his call for a rev-
olution to establish an Islamic state and society, greatly influenced the
Islamic resurgence movements of the twentieth century. He was
detained by the Egyptian authorities. On 19 August 1966 Sayyid Qutb
 

and two companions were sentenced to death by a military tribunal,

and the sentence was carried out on the morning of 25 August 1966.
 

See ‘Sayyid Qutb’, Encyclopedia of World Biography 2004, available from

466
 notes pp. [297–301]
Encyclopedia.com at http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2–34047
05757.html, last accessed 6 August 2015.
 

71. However, some have suggested that the emergence of hakimiyya in

Qutb’s thought came as a response to a process of ‘Westernizing’
Muslim society. See S. Khatab, ‘The Voice of Democratism in Sayyid
 

Qutb’s Response to Violence and Terrorism’, Islam and Christian–Muslim

Relations 20, 3 (2009), p. 315–2, at p. 320; also available at http://
doi.org/10.1080/09596410902983008, last accessed 30 January 2012.
 

72. Ibid., p.  321.

73. Al-Qaradawi, Min Fiqh al-Dawla fi’l Islam, p. 64.
74. F. M. al-Nadi, Mabadi’ Nizam al-Hukm fI’l-Islam [Principles of a system
   

of governance in Islam], 2nd edn, Cairo: Dar al-Manar, 2005, pp. 48–9.

75. Rashid al-Ghannouchi, Mabadi’ al-Hukm wa‘l-Sulta fi‘l-Islam [Principles
 

of governance and authority in Islam], published online by Al-Jazeera,

2004, available at http://www.aljazeera.net/specialfiles/pages/2321a16c-
5ca8-4d7b-90a3-0afedd939ff7# ‫مصدر الشرعية في الدولة اإلسالمية‬, last
accessed 26 April 2015.
 

76. Qur’an 5:44.
77. Qur’an 5:45.
78. Qur’an 5:47.
79. Ira M. Lapidus, ‘Islamic Revival and Modernity: The Contemporary
 

Movements and the Historical Paradigms’, Journal of the Economic and

Social History of the Orient 40, 4 (1997), pp. 444–60.
80. As’ad Abu Khalil and Mahmoud Haddad, ‘Revival and Renewal’, in
The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Islamic World, Oxford Islamic Studies
Online, available at http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/
opr/t236/e0682, last accessed 17 June 2017.
 

81. ‘Islamic Modernism and Islamic Revival’, in Atlas of the World’s Religions,

2nd edn, ed. Ninian Smart and Frederick Denny, Oxford Islamic
Studies Online, available at http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/
article/opr/t253/e9, last accessed 17 June 2017.
 

82. Abu Khalil and Haddad, ‘Revival and Renewal’.

83. Ibid.
84. For examples of Indian Muslims under the British in 1857, and Algeria
under the French in 1831, see Radwan al-Sayyid, Azmina al-Taghir: al-
Din wa’l-Dawla wa’l-Islam al-Siyasi [Times of change: religion, state,
and political Islam], Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Masriyya al-‘Amma li’l-Kutub,
2015, pp. 195–9.
85. Esposito, Islam and Politics, p. 39.
86. Qur’an 4:59.
87. Arnold H. Green, ‘A Comparative Historical Analysis of the Ulama
 

and the State in Egypt and Tunisia’, Revue de l’Occident Musulman et de

la Méditerranée 29 (1980), pp. 31–54, at p. 35.

467
pp. [301–307] Notes
88. A concept analysed in Ibn Taymiyya’s influential account, al-Kitab al-
Siyasa al-Shar‘iyya [Treatise on government by the Shari’a], Cairo:
Dar al-Sha’b, 1971.
89. Qur’an 4:58, 4:59.
90. For an in-depth study of the Muslim Brotherhood and its evolution
see Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an
Islamist Movement, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, also
available at https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400866243, last accessed
17 June 2017.
 

91. An Islamic political organization and social conservative movement

founded in 1941.
92. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, John Obert Voll, and John L. Esposito, The
 

Contemporary Islamic Revival: A Critical Survey and Bibliography, New

York: Greenwood Press, 1991, p. 39.
93. Ibid., pp.  43–4.
94. Ibid., p.  44.
95. Ibid.
96. Abu Khalil and Haddad, ‘Revival and Renewal’.
97. Haddad et al., The Contemporary Islamic Revival, p. 41.
98. For additional context see Rouhollah K. Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran:
 

Challenge and Response in the Middle East, Baltimore and London: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1986; Rouhullah K. Ramazani, ‘Iran’s
 

Islamic Revolution and the Persian Gulf’, Current History 84, 498
(1985), pp. 5–8 and 40–1.
99. Haddad et al., The Contemporary Islamic Revival, pp. 43–4.
100. In other words, because of their belief that the Islamists, like other
opposition and political groups, should have a say, and the freedom
to participate in the electoral processes and public discourse.
101. Al-Sayyid, Azmina al-Taghir, pp. 195–217.
102. N. Ayubi, Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World, London:
 

Routledge, 1991, p. 59.

103. Abu Khalil and Haddad, ‘Revival and Renewal’.
104. Al-Sayyid, Azmina al-Taghir, pp. 195–217.
105. Abu Khalil and Haddad, ‘Revival and Renewal’.
106. Kamran Bokhari and Farid Senzai, Political Islam in the Age of
Democratization, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
107. See Salafism in Egypt, Religious Literacy Project, Harvard Divinity
School, Harvard University, 2017, available at https://rlp.hds.har-
vard.edu/faq/salafism-egypt, last accessed 1 Aug 2017. See also
 

Guido Steinberg, ‘Leading the Counter-Revolution: Saudi Arabia and

the Arab Spring’, Berlin, SWP Research Paper 2014/RP 07, avail-
able at https://www.swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/

468
 notes pp. [309–310]
research_papers/2014_RP07_sbg.pdf, p. 8; John R. Bradley, After the
 

Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts, New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, p. 83 (for further context see also
pp. 65–94).
108. See Kathryn Babayan, ‘The Safavid Synthesis: From Qizilbash Islam
to Imamite Shiism’, Iranian Studies 27, 1–4 (1994), pp. 135–61. The
account of the beginning of the Safavid state (al-dawla al-safawiyya)
in Arabic scholarship begins with the fall of the Aqquyunlu, and ends
in 1736. See Hassan Karim al-Jaf, Mawsu’at Tarikh Iran al-Siyasi
[Encyclopaedia of the political history of Iran], Beirut: al-Dar al-
‘Arabiyya li’l-Mawsu’at, 2008.
109. The mountains south of Lebanon and the north-east of Syria. Jabal
‘Amil had witnessed important moments in Shi’ite history, such as
the visits of the Prophet’s companions Abu Dhar al-Ghifari and
Salman the Persian, as well as that of Saladin’s son, to the Ottoman
persecutions, and finally Arab nationalism. See Ali Dawud Jabir, The
Missing Link of the History of Jabal ‘Amil, Beirut: Dar al-Hadi, 2005,
pp. 61–183.
110. David Blow, Shah Abbas: The Ruthless King who Became an Iranian Legend,
London: I. B. Tauris, 2014, p. 4.
   

111. Ibid.
112. Andrew Newman, Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire, London:
I. B. Tauris, 2009, p. 13.
   

113. Ibid., p.  26.

114. Ibid., p.  50.
115. Rula Abisaab, Converting Persia: Religion and Power in the Safavid Empire,
London: I. B. Tauris, 2014, pp. X, 50.
   

116. More monographs have recently discussed him and his legacy; see
e.g. Blow, Shah Abbas.
117. Both Musavi genealogy and Sufi-mindedness of the state feature heav-
ily in Babayan’s scholarship. See Kathryn Babayan, ‘Sufis, Darvishes,
and Mullas: The Controversy over Spiritual and Temporal Dominion
in 17th Century Safavi Iran’, in Charles Melville (ed.), Safavi Persia,
London: I. B. Tauris, 1996, p. 123.
   

118. Babayan, ‘The Safavid Synthesis’, p. 137.

119. These extreme actions are naturally transgressive, but they are meant
to show loyalty by breaking normative boundaries and allowing for
a new form of codes and values intended to show loyalty.
120. Babayan, ‘The Safavid Synthesis’, p. 140.
121. Shahzad Bashir, ‘Shah Isma‘il and the Qizilbash: Cannibalism in the
Religious History of Early Safavid Iran’, History of Religions 45, 3
(2006), pp. 234–56.

469
pp. [301–314] Notes
122. Newman, Safavid Iran, p. 15.
123. Al-Karaki issued a fatwa (injunction) allowing the cursing of Abu
Muslim, the god-like hero of the Qizilbash, and wrote one of the
earliest polemics against the extreme Sufiesque ghulat sects. See
Babayan, ‘The Safavid Synthesis’, p. 144.
124. Mohamad Bassam, Jabal ‘Amel: Documented Truths, Beirut: al-Kawkab
Publishing, 2011, p. 34.
125. Al-Jaf, Mawsu’at Tarikh Iran al-Siyasi, p. 25.
126. Babayan, ‘Sufis, Darvishes, and Mullas’, p. 123.
127. ‘It seems most reasonable to divide the Safavid period into two cen-
turies.’ See Newman, Safavid Iran, p. 584.
128. Ibid., p.  9.
129. Ibid., p.  10.
130. The clerics supported confessional rituals. See Abisaab, Converting
Persia, p. 50.
131. Ibid., p.  5.
132. Babayan, ‘Sufis, Darvishes, and Mullas’, p. 125.
133. Said Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1984, p. 107.
134. Newman, Safavid Iran, p. 580.
135. Abisaab, Converting Persia, p. 36.
136. Note also the controversies over the direction of prayer; the Friday
prayer; the Nuqtavi affair; local shrines (e.g. Yazd); the tombs of
imamzadas and Ni‘matullahis; verses; the shrines of imams (in
Mashhad/Qum and Qadamgah).
137. Abisaab, Converting Persia, p. 19.
138. Ibid., p.  137.
139. Ibid., p.  119.
140. The Ni‘matulallahi family aligned themselves with the Safavid house
by several marriages. See Arjomand, The Shadow of God, p. 116.
141. Newman, Safavid Iran, p. 15.
142. Ibid., p.  90.
143. Arjomand, The Shadow of God, p. 12–17.
144. Abisaab, Converting Persia, pp. 117–20.
145. Newman, Safavid Iran, p. 69.
146. Ibid., p.  70.
147. Ibid., p.  581.
148. Ibid., p.  589.
149. Babayan, ‘Sufis, Darvishes, and Mullas’, p. 117.
150. Newman, Safavid Iran, p. 57.
151. Ibid.
152. Al-Jaf, Mawsu’at Tarikh Iran al-Siyasi, p. 48.

470
 notes pp. [314–316]
153. Kathryn Babayan, Mystics, Monarchs and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of
Early Modern Iran, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002,
p. 352.
154. Ibid., pp.  351–2.
155. Abisaab, Converting Persia, p. 57.
156. Babayan, Mystics, Monarchs and Messiahs, p. 352.
157. Ibid., p.  365.
158. Ibid.
159. Babayan argues that at the turn of the seventeenth century ‘the court
was becoming urbanized, the nature of male royal power took on
feminine characteristics, in that shahs were secluded in the heart of
the palace’: ibid., p. 373.
160. Al-Jaf, Mawsu’at Tarikh Iran al-Siyasi, p. 50.
161. Taima, al-Usul al-‘Aqadiyya li-al-Imamiyya, p. 31.
162. Khomeini, Islamic Government.
163. For context and analysis on the contributions of Yusuf al-Qaradawi
to contemporary Islamic thought and scholarship see Sami E. Baroudi,
 

‘Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi on International Relations: The Discourse of

a Leading Islamist Scholar (1926–)’, Middle Eastern Studies 50, 1
(2014), pp. 2–26.
164. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Ummatna Bayn Qarnayn [Our umma between two
centuries], Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2002, p. 122.
165. Ali Shariati, What Is To Be Done: The Enlightened Thinkers and an Islamic
Renaissance, ed. F. Rajaee and foreword by J. L. Esposito, Houston:
     

Institute for Research and Islamic Studies, 1986, p. 49.

166. Ali Shariati, al-Tashayu’ al-‘Alawi wa al-Tashayu’ al-Safaw’ [Red (Alevi)
Shi’ism vs. black (Safavid) Shi’ism], Beirut: Dar al-‘Amir li’l-Thaqa-
fat wa’l-Funun, 2007, p. 150.
167. Janey Levy, Understanding Iran and the Shia, New York: Rosen
Publishing Group, 2009, p. 25.
168. Misagh Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1989, p. 9.
169. Murtada Mutahhari, The Islamic Movements in the Twentieth Century,
trans. E. Qoran, Tehran: Great Islamic Library, 1979.
 

170. J. J. Donohue and J. L. Esposito (eds.), Islam in Transition: Muslim

       

Perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, pp. 308–9.

171. He states: ‘The Shia ecclesiastic order is an independent institution,
drawing strength (from the spiritual point of view) from God alone
and (from social point of view) from the power of the masses’: ibid.,
p. 308.
172. Mohamad Sayyid Rassas, Ikhwan al-Muslimin wa Iran al-Kumayni–al-
Khamina’i [The Muslim Brotherhood and Khomeini–Khamena’i],
Beirut: Jadawil lil-Nashr wa al-Tawzi, 2013.

471
pp. [316–320] Notes
173. Muhammad ‘Abduh, Nahj al-Balagha of ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, Beirut: Dar
al-Ma‘rifa li’l-Tiba’a wa al-Nashr, 2009.
174. Khamahyar Saidi, Iran wa-al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin: Dirasa fi ‘Awamil al-
Iltiqa’ wa-al-Iftiraq [Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood: a study in fac-
tors of convergence and divergence], Beirut: Markaz al-Dirasat al-
Istiratijiyya wa-al-Buhhuth wa-al-Tawthiq, 1997.
 

175. http://iranarab.com/Default.asp?Page=ViewArticle&ArticleID=213
176. It would be naive to assume that the relationship was not free from
antagonism. Rassas recites an interesting myth the second plane land-
ing after that of PLO leader Arafat in Tehran was a private plane car-
rying several members of the global leadership of the Muslim
Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood believe in the centrality of
establishing an Islamic Caliphate, they offered to pledge allegiance
(bay‘a) to Khomeini as long as he accepted that the controversy
between the ideas of the Imamate and the Caliphate are in fact polit-
ical rather than creedal. He chose to reflect on the issue and, as the
spokesman of the Ikhwan claims, the answer came by way of the con-
stitution much later, in so far as the Ja‘fari madhhab was made the
official madhhab, and velayat-e faqih established supremacy of the
Hidden Imam. The narrative suggests that this was the fatalistic tar-
geted answer of Khomeini to the proposal made by the Ikhwan which
may have been superficial since it does not account for the internal
political reality of the state.
177. In 1984 a postage stamp featuring Sayyid Qutb was released in Iran.
178. Khomeini, Islamic Government.
179. Ibid. See Algar’s introductory comments: ‘Then he [Khomeini] con-
tinues logically to discuss insinuated misgivings, such as “Islam is not
a competent religion to govern the society at the age of industrial
civilization” or “legal provisions of Islam are inadequate to resolve
the social problems, and to provide us with appropriate answers”.’
180. Said Amir Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in
Iran, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 75.
181. Ibid., pp.  184–6.
182. Vanessa Martin, Creating an Islamic State: Khomeini and the Making of
a New Iran, London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2003, p. 100.
   

183. Ibid., p.  50.

184. Zubaida, ‘An Islamic State?’.
185. It is worth pointing out that this Islamic principle is exactly that of
Ibn Taymiyya in his book on constitutional or legitimate policy (al-
siyasa al-shari‘yya).
186. Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, p. 78.
187. Iran and the Arabs, as well as other non-Iranian Shi’a, seem to be

472
 notes pp. [320–323]
aware that they might need to cooperate to achieve short-term
political goals. It appears that Iranian nationalism and national inter-
est will be the driving forces behind the country’s foreign policy in
the aftermath of nuclear disarmament. This nationalism would not
be ‘racialized’, as it would include the ethnic non-Persian Shi’a of
Iran, such as the Ahwazi Arabs and Azeris, who make up a signifi-
cant proportion of the population in their respective provinces. This
orientation of Iranian foreign policy is possibly easier to address than
a ‘religiously inspired’ messianic one, as it allows for diplomatic,
pragmatic solutions to current issues such as the recent US–Iranian
rapprochement. Paradoxically, the Islamic Republic would then be
rooted in traditional Iranian foreign policy: see Marcinkowski,
Between Iran and Persia.
188. Al-Awwa, Fi al-Nizam al-Siyasi li’l-Dawla al-Islamiyya, pp. 254–96.
189. Ibid., p.  269.
190. Ibid., p.  275.
191. Ibid., p.  296.
192. See Lister, The Syrian Jihad.
193. DA’ISH leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as cited in Bunzel, ‘From Paper
State to Caliphate’.
194. Mehana al-Habil, Daeish Najid al-Umq al-Aqa’di wa’l-Istratiji [DA’ISH
Najid: The ideological and strategic depth], Islamtoday.net 3–7–2015,
available at http://www.islamtoday.net/nawafeth/artshow-13-211332.
htm; see also Lister, The Syrian Jihad.
195. See, for example, Alastair Crooke, ‘The ISIS “Management of
Savagery” in Iraq’, Huffington Post, 2014, available at http://www.huff-
ingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/iraq-isis-alqaeda_b_5542575.html,
last accessed 22 April 2017.
 

196. For an analysis of DA’ISH’s economic model, which attempts to

secure revenues from diverse sources ranging from oil and natural
gas to phosphate, cement, sulphur, and agriculture, see Jean-Charles
Brisard and Damien Martinez, ‘Islamic State: The Economy-Based
Terrorist Funding’, Thomson Reuters, 2014, available at http://www.
gdr-elsj.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Islamic-State.pdf, last
accessed 22 April 2017.
 

197. Crooke, ‘The ISIS “Management of Savagery” in Iraq’.

198. Rick Noack, ‘Here’s How the Islamic State Compares with Real
States’, Washington Post, 12 September 2014, available at https://
 

www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/09/12/
heres-how-the-islamic-state-compares-to-real-states/?utm_
term=.256f8502ce89, last accessed 22 April 2017.
 

199. See, for example, Karen Armstrong, ‘Wahhabism to ISIS: How Saudi

473
pp. [323–325] Notes
Arabia Exported the Main Source of Global Terrorism’, New
Statesman, 27 November 2014, available at http://www.newstates-
 

man.com/world-affairs/2014/11/wahhabism-isis-how-saudi-arabia-
exported-main-source-global-terrorism, last accessed 22 April 2017;  

Alastair Crooke, ‘You can’t Understand ISIS if you don’t Know the
History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia’, Huffington Post, 2014, avail-
able at https://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/isis-wah-
habism-saudi-arabia_b_5717157.html, last accessed 22 April 2017.
 

200. See, for context, Gretchen Peters, Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is

Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda (2009) New York: Macmillan,
2009; Gretchen Peters, How Opium Profits the Taliban, Peaceworks 62,
Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2009. Even though
the Taliban initially cracked down on opium cultivation and trade,
according to Peters (How Opium Profits the Taliban), 95 per cent of the
   

Taliban commanders today fight for profit and only 5 per cent for
   

ideology. Lastly, see Raphael F. Perl, ‘Taliban and the Drug Trade’,
 

Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 2001, available

at http://www.au.af.mil/AU/awc/awcgate/crs/rs21041.pdf, last
accessed 22 April 2017.
 

201. Al-Habil, Daeish Najid; Lister, The Syrian Jihad.

202. Crooke, ‘The ISIS “Management of Savagery” in Iraq’.
203. See, for context, Charles Lister, ‘Profiling the Islamic State’,
Brookings Doha Center Analysis Paper No. 13, 2014, Chapter IV,
Part II, esp. pp. 21–5, available at http://somalianation.com/wp-con-
tent/uploads/2014/12/en_web_lister.pdf, last accessed 22 April  

2017.
204. The recruiting process is facilitated by DA’ISH’s masterful digital pro-
paganda as well as its high remuneration to its fighters. Also, ulti-
mately, the recruitment is facilitated by the fact that the fighters
effectively are under the impression that they are soldiers serving in
the ranks of the (actual and territorial) Islamic State, advancing the
establishment of a tangible Caliphate. For further context see, for
example, Abdel Bari Atwan, Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate,
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015.
205. Wood, ‘What ISIS Really Wants’.
206. See Philippe Droz-Vincent, ‘“State of Barbary” (Take Two): From the
Arab Spring to the Return of Violence in Syria’, Middle East Journal
(Middle East Institute) 68, 1 (2014), pp. 33–58.
207. Esposito, ‘Islam and Political Violence’, pp. 1078–9; Rami Khouri,
‘ISIS is about the Arab Past, not the Future’, Michael Van Dusen
Lecture Series on the Middle East, Wilson Center Middle East
Program, May 2015, pp. 1–23, at p. 10, text available at https://

474
 notes pp. [325–330]
www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/isis_is_about_the_arab_
past_not_the_future.pdf, last accessed 23 April 2017.
 

208. See Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the
Extremists, New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005.
209. Esposito, ‘Islam and Political Violence’, p. 1072.
210. Khouri, ‘ISIS is about the Arab Past, not the Future’, p. 10.
211. See Abd al-Salam al-Wayyil, Tahadiyyat Da’ish 2/1 [Da’ish Challenges
2/1], al-Markaz al-Arabi lil Buhuth Wa al-Diraasaat (Arab Centre for
Research and Studies), available at https://www.acrseg.org/10022
212. Ibid.
213. Esposito, ‘Islam and Political Violence’, p. 1072.
214. M. J. Kirdar, ‘al Qaeda in Iraq’, Centre for Strategic and International
   

Studies (CSIS), Al Qaeda and Associated Movements (AQAM) Futures

Project, Case Study No. 1, 15 June 2011, p. 2, available at https://
 

www.csis.org/analysis/al-qaeda-iraq, last accessed 22 April 2017.

 

215. Ibid.
216. Al-Wayyil, Tahadiyyat Da’ish 2/1.
217. Kirdar, ‘al Qaeda in Iraq’.
218. Wood provides further context for the meaning of takfir: ‘In Islam,
the practice of Takfir, or excommunication, is theologically perilous.
“If a man says to his brother, ‘You are an infidel,’” the Prophet said,
“then one of them is right.” If the accuser is wrong, he himself has
committed apostasy by making a false accusation.’ This is particularly
interesting given the ease by which terrorist groups such as DA’ISH,
al-Qaida, and Boko Haram have used takfir to justify their extreme
practices and brutality towards fellow Muslims. See Wood, ‘What
ISIS Really Wants’.
219. See Sharif Hatim ben Aref al-Awni, Takfir Ahl al-Shahadatayn [The
expiation of the people of the two degrees], Riyadh: Markaz Nama
li’l-Buhuth wa al-Dirasat Nama Center for Research and Studies,
2015.
220. Shaykh Dr Hatim al-Awni al-Sharif is a distinguished Saudi academic
 

figure at the University of Um al-Qurra and an ex-member of the

Saudi Shura Council.
221. See a-Awni, Takfir Ahl al-Shahadatayn.
222. Ibid.
223. ‘al-Shaykh Hatam al-Awni Dayf Barnamaj Liqa’ al-Juma‘a Ma’aa
Abdullah al-Mudifir’ [Shaykh Hatem al-Awni guest programme, Friday
meeting with Abdullah al-Mudifir], YouTube video, 58:50, posted by
“‫[ خليجية‬Khaliyjiyya], 11 September 2014, available at https://www.
 

youtube.com/watch?v=FPG0inv45–8&feature=youtu.be
224. Al-Awni in his interview (ibid.) gives some examples of Saudi schol-

475
pp. [330–343] Notes
ars who have made some reformation attempts, such as Bin Baz clar-
ifying hakimiyya or the legality of adopting positive legislation. He
noted that the crucial point in providing a judgment should be the
belief or intention that is based on the heart of the person, for exam-
ple if the person believes that these positive laws are not better than
religion or are much more important than religious law, then the
person should not be categorized as doing something prohibited, and
consequently these laws are lawful.
225. See al-Awni, Takfir Ahl al-Shahadatayn; ‘al-Shaykh Hatam al-Awni Dayf
Barnamaj Liqa’ al-Juma‘a Ma’aa Abdullah al-Mudifir’.
226. ‘Wilayat Najd (Najd Province)’, Global Security 2015, available at
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/wilayat-najd.
htm, last accessed 24 April 2017.
 

227. Al-Tayyib, ‘Opening Speech’

228. Ibid.
229. Ibid., pp.  10–12.
230. Ibid., pp.  12–13.
231. ‘Al Azhar Conference Calls for Muslims to Combat Extremist
Ideology’, Washington, DC: Embassy of Egypt, 2014, available at
http://www.egyptembassy.net/news/al-azhar-conference-calls-for-
muslims-to-combat-extremist-ideology/, last accessed 22 July 2015.
 

232. Al-Tayyib, ‘Opening Speech’, p. 17.

233. Ibid., pp.  9–16.
234. ‘Ali ibn Isma‘il Abu al-Hasan Ash‘ari, Maqalat al-Islamiyyin wa-Ikhti-
laf al-Musallin [The articles of Islamists and differences of worship-
pers], Beirut: al-Maktaba al-‘Asriyya, 2005, pp. 1–2.
235. Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905) was the head of the Islamic Verdict
Body (mufti) in Egypt and most other Islamic countries in his time.
236. Muhammad ‘Abduh, al-A’mal al-Kamila li’l-Imam al-Shaykh Muhammad
‘Abduh [The complete works of Muhammad ‘Abduh], ed. and comp.
Muhammed Imarah, Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1993, vol. 3, p. 302.
237. Al-Tayyib, ‘Opening Speech’, pp. 13–14.
238. Qur’an 5:32.
239. Al-Tayyib, ‘Opening Speech’, p. 14.

9. THE RELUCTANT HIJAZ: A MOMENT FOR PAUSE, REFLECTION,

AND LEGITIMATE POLICY RESET
1. Al-Tayyib, ‘Opening Speech’, p. 14.
2. Ibid.
3. ‘Al Azhar Conference Calls for Muslims to Combat Extremist Ideology’.
4. Quoted in Mohammad al-Majdhub, Muhadarat fi al-Munzzimat al-Dawliyya

476
 notes pp. [343–346]
 wa’l-Iqlimiyya [Lectures on international and regional organizations],
Beirut: Maktabat Makawi, 1978, pp. 18–19.
5. For instance, in the present context, as discussed earlier, the
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has an ‘Islamic bloc’ dimension,
at times reflected within the UN context too.
6. Mohammad Imarah, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani: Muqidh al-Sharq wa Falasuf
al-Islam [Jamal al-Din al-Afghani: saviour of the Orient and philoso-
pher of Islam], Beirut: Dar al-Wahda, 1984, p. 113.
7. Al-Afghani recognized the negative impact of centralization and the
traditional system of governance on the Ottoman Sultanate, so he was
keen to promote internal self-determination in order to improve these
ten states/territories in terms of prosperity and civilization compared
to Egypt at that time.
8. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, al-A’mal al-Kamila li Jamal al-Din al-Afghani
[The complete works of Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani], ed. Mohammad
Imarah, Beirut: al-Mu’asassa al-‘Arabiyya li’l-Dirasat wa’l-Nashr, 1981,
vol. 2, pp. 28–9.
9. Jacob M. Landau, The Politics of Pan-Islam: Ideology and Organization,
 

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990, p. 21.

10. Imarah, Ihya’ al-Khilafa al-Islamiyya, pp. 27–8.
11. ‘Abduh, al-A’mal al-Kamila, p. 117.
12. Al-Kawakibi’s proposal for such an Islamic organization suggests that
it might consist of 100 members, with others as advisers; such an
organization should not be subject to any government, or represent
any particular religious school of thought, and its slogan—he sug-
gests—should be ‘We Do not Worship any Deity but God’. Among
the organization’s goals could be promoting religious education and
other beneficial sciences and morals; see al-Kawakibi, Umm al-Qura.
13. Ibid.
14. Abdelhamid Ben Badis (1889–1940). He studied at Zaytouna
University in Tunis and was an symbolic figure of the Islamic reform
movement in Algeria. In 1931 Ben Badis founded the Association of
Algerian Muslim ‘Ulama’, which was a national grouping of many
Islamic scholars in Algeria. Ben Badis also spoke out against French
rule in an attempt to preserve Algerian culture in the wake of
French colonization.
15. Discussed earlier in the context of leadership in policy making.
16. Mohammad Rashid Rida, al-Khilafa [The Caliphate], Cairo: al-Zahra
li’l-‘Ilam al-‘Arabi, 1988 [1922], p. 78.
17. Rida wrote al-Khilafa in 1922 to explore his views about the Caliphate
and its importance for Muslims. The book discussed several issues and
arguments concerning the validity of the Caliphate system, and at the

477
pp. [347–350] Notes
same time he suggested holding a conference for Muslim scholars and
influential figures in the Islamic world to restore the real Caliphate.
See ibid., p. 156.
18. Abul Kalam Azad (1888–1958), a prominent Indian religious scholar
and activist.
19. Willis, ‘Debating the Caliphate’, p. 729.
20. Ibid., p.  720.
21. Ibid., p.  729.
22. Tauber, ‘Three Approaches, One Idea’, p. 197.
23. In his contribution to the al-Azhar International Conference on
Confronting Extremism and Terrorism held in 2014.
24. Abul-‘Ala al-Mawdudi developed the concept that led to the creation
of zones with Muslim majorities, such as Pakistan in 1947.
25. Radwan al-Sayyid, ‘al-Dawla al-Islamiyya wa’l-Khilafa’ [The Islamic
state and the Caliphate], in al-Tayyib (ed.), al-Azhar fi Muwajahat al-
Fikr al-Irhabi.
26. Ibid.
27. For instance, in earlier sections we discussed the violence and role of
the militant Wahhabi Ikhwan in the early twentieth century. Also, con-
sider the broader late 2010s, the rise of Islamophobia, the role of pop-
ulist politicians in the West and securitization discourses, as well as
the election of Donald Trump and his initial actions. There has been
an idea that there is a ‘move against Islam’ which, in turn, is danger-
ous in empowering reactionary, radical voices within Islam too, lead-
ing us to the gloomy scenarios of support for entities such as the
Ikhwan, militant Salafi Wahhabis, the Taliban, al-Qaida, DA’ISH, al-
Shabaab, or Boko Haram. The worst part of this equation was pro-
vided by DA’ISH’s plans for a universal ‘Islamic State’ (of terror) and
‘Caliphate’, and the notable mobilization this had in terms of inter-
national support—underlined in the numbers of recruits, foreign fight-
ers, and ‘digitally’ radicalized individual supporters.
28. This principle has been recognized by the ICJ. See, for example, Legal
 

Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia,

Advisory Opinion, ICJ Rep 1971, pp. 46–7.
29. It was illegal due to the fact that Japan signed the General Treaty for
Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy, known as
The Kellogg–Briand Pact or Pact of Paris.
30. See, for instance, Security Council Res. 476 (1980) and 478 (1980)
declaring purported changes in the status of Jerusalem by Israel to be
null and void; also Security Council Res. 216 (1965), calling on mem-
bers not to recognize Rhodesia’s declaration of independence.
31. See, for example, Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence
of South Africa in Namibia.

478
 notes pp. [350–351]
32. James Crawford, The International Law Commission’s Articles on State
Responsibility: Introduction, Text and Commentaries, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002, p. 249.
33. The question regarding the peremptory norms of general international
law is very complex, and it is not the intention of this publication to
discuss that issue. However, it is sufficient for the current dispute, not
entering the theoretical problems of jus cogens, peremptory, or erga
omnes norms, to highlight that it is generally accepted that the prohi-
bition of aggression, and the prohibition of slavery and racial discrim-
ination, among others, are to be regarded as peremptory norms. Those
norms are mentioned because of two aspects: (a) as discussed, there
was a general agreement among the governments, during the work
on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) and also
during the Vienna Conference, as to the peremptory character of these
prohibitions; (b) it is quite easy to establish that the actions of DA’ISH
are in violation of the prohibition of aggression and the prohibition of
slavery and racial discrimination (to cite a few). Therefore, it can be
assumed that the actions of DA’ISH are a serious breach of obligations
under peremptory norms.
34. See Article 40 of the Article on State Responsibility, in Crawford, The
International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility, p. 69.
35. See, in general, John Dugard, Recognition and the United Nations,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. See also Vidmar,
Democratic Statehood in International Law, p. 44: ‘It further specifies that
states owe an obligation erga omnes to withhold formal or implied
recognition of an effective territorial situation created in breach of jus
cogens.’
36. ‘Contemporary international law also knows of the concept of addi-
tional statehood criteria. These criteria are defined in negative terms:
a state must not emerge as a result of the (illegal) use of force, in
violation of the right of self-determination and/or in pursuance of
racist policies’: Vidmar, Democratic Statehood in International Law, p. 61.
37. See Sunny Hundal, ‘The Real Threat from the Islamic State is to
Muslims, Not the West: The Rise of the Islamic State Group is
Probably the Worst Event in Recent Muslim History Since 9/11’,
Al-Jazeera News, 26 August 2014, available at http://www.aljazeera.
 

com/indepth/opinion/2014/08/real-threat-from-islamic-state—
201482316357532975.html, last accessed 24 March 2017.
 

38. As discussed in Part II of this book.

39. See Andrew Hosken, Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State, London:
Oneworld, 2015, and Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, ‘Plans for Redrawing
the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East”’, Centre for

479
pp. [352–353] Notes
Research on Globalization, Montreal, 2015, available at https://www.
globalresearch.ca/plans-for-redrawing-the-middle-east-the-project-
for-a-new-middle-east/3882
40. ‘At this moment, the greatest threats come from the Middle East and
North Africa, where radical groups exploit grievances for their own
gain. And one of those groups is ISIL—which calls itself the “Islamic
State”. Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not ‘Islamic’. No reli-
gion condones the killing of the innocent. And the vast majority of
ISIL’s victims have been Muslim. Furthermore, ISIL is certainly not a
state. It was formerly al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq, and has taken advan-
tage of a sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war to gain territory on both
sides of the Iraq–Syrian border. It is recognized by no government,
nor by the people it subjugates. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure
and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who
stand in its way.’ Statement by the President of the United States of
America, Barack Obama, on ISIL, The White House, Office of the
Press Secretary, 10 September 2014, available at https://www.white-
 

house.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/10/statement-president-isil-1,
last accessed 24 March 2017.
 

41. Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly

Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the
Charter of the United Nations, GA Res 2625 (XXV) (1970).
42. See Case Concerning Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against
Nicaragua, ICJ Rep 1986, p. 14: ‘The principle of non-intervention
forbids all States or groups of States to intervene directly or indirectly
in internal or external affairs of other States. A prohibited interven-
tion must accordingly be one bearing on matters in which each State
is permitted, by the principle of State sovereignty, to decide freely.
One of these is the choice of a political, economic, social and cultural
system.’
43. See, for context, the activity of the Personal Envoys of the Secretary-
General for the Greece–FYROM talks—Cyrus Vance (1993–9) and
Matthew Nimetz (since 1999); see also UNSC Res. 817 (1993) or
UNGA Res. 47/225; and ICJ cases touching upon that issue:
Application of the Interim Accord of 13 September 1995 (the former Yugoslav
 

Republic of Macedonia v. Greece), Judgment, ICJ Reports 2011 (II), esp.

p. 644) and Memorial of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (20 July
 

2009) and Counter-Memorial of Greece (19 January 2010), available at

 

www.icj-cij.org, last accessed 23 March 2017.

 

44. Sir Michael Wood, ‘Macedonia’, Max Planck Encyclopaedia of Public

International Law, online version, para. 4: ‘In common usage,
“Macedonia” may be used as an informal way of referring to the

480
 notes pp. [353–355]
Republic of Macedonia, or may refer to an area larger than the
Republic, approximating to “geographical” or “historic” Macedonia. In
August 1913, this larger area was divided up among Serbia (the pres-
ent Republic of Macedonia), Bulgaria (Pirin), and Greece (Province
of Macedonia). A very small area north and south of Debar became
part of Albania. The three main parts of “Macedonia” in this wider
sense are sometimes referred to as Vardar Macedonia, Pirin Macedonia,
and Greek/Hellenic Macedonia respectively.’
45. Greece is also using its leverage accrued from being member of both
the EU and NATO, and pressures its smaller neighbour through these
multilateral fora. The EU and NATO still refer to the Republic of
Macedonia as FYROM. In fact, Greece blocked FYROM’s NATO
 

membership bid in 2008 and EU accession negotiations in 2009. For

greater context on Greece’s pressure tactics on the issue, see Fotis
Mavromatidis, ‘The Role of the European Union in the Name Dispute
between Greece and FYR Macedonia’, Journal of Contemporary European
Studies 18, 1 (2010), pp. 47–62.
46. Wood, ‘Macedonia’, para. 33.
47. Matthew Craven, ‘What’s in a Name? The Former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia and Issues of Statehood’, Australian Yearbook of International
Law 16, (1995), pp. 199–239, at pp. 199–200.
48. Fred Burton and Scott Stewart, ‘The Hajj: Challenges and
Opportunities’, Stratfor Weekly, 5 December 2007, available at https://
 

www.stratfor.com/weekly/hajji_challenges_and_opportunities, last
accessed 22 March 2017.
 

49. John Kifner, ‘400 Die as Iranian Marchers Battle Saudi Police in

Mecca; Embassies Smashed in Teheran’, New York Times, 2 August 1987,
 

available at http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/02/world/400-die-
iranian-marchers-battle-saudi-police-mecca-embassies-smashed-teheran.
html?pagewanted=all, last accessed 22 March 2017.
 

50. Saudi officials reported that 769 pilgrims had died, but reports from
other nations claimed the numbers were underestimated and the dead
toll was over a thousand. See, for example, ‘Hajj Stampede: What we
Know So Far’, BBC News, 1 October 2015, available at http://www.
 

bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34357952, last Accessed 22 March  

2017.
51. ‘Hajj Stampede: Iran’s Rouhani Calls for Investigation at UN’, BBC
News, 27 September 2015, available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
 

world-middle-east-34368387, last accessed 23 March 2017.

 

52. And also earlier, with South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia (2008).
53. BBC reporter Andrew Hosken released a map (available at https://
www.express.co.uk/news/uk/597254/ISIS-Map-Europe-Terror-

481
pp. [356–362] Notes
Organisation-Andrew-Hosken-Caliphate-Abu-Musab-al-Zarqawi) detail-
ing DA’ISH’s ambitions to acquire huge territory including The Hijaz.
See Mark Aitken, ‘The World According to ISIS: Redrawn Map Reveals
Terror Group’s Blueprint to Take Over Huge Territory’, Daily Record,
9 August 2015, available at http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-
 

world-news/world-according-isis-redrawn-map-6222005#jLLHrTk
ZYmcfJrCd.97, last accessed 24 March 2017.
 

54. Report of Committee set up to consider certain correspondence

between Sir Henry McMahon (His Majesty’s High Commissioner in
Egypt) and the Sherif of Mecca in 1915 and 1916 (McMahon
Correspondence). 1938–39 [Cmd. 5974] House of Commons Parlia­
mentary Papers Online; text available at https://unispal.un.org/DPA/
DPR/unispal.nsf/0/4C4F7515DC39195185256CF7006F878C
55. See Antonius, The Arab Awakening.
56. See Mamdani, ‘Whither Political Islam?’.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid.
59. Lister, The Syrian Jihad.
60. See Maher, Salafi Jihadism.
61. ‘Saudi Arabia Population 2017’, available at http://worldpopulation-
review.com/countries/saudi-arabia-population/, last accessed 24 March
 

2017.
62. See, for instance, House, On Saudi Arabia, pp. 107–11.
63. Ibid., p.  219.
64. Ibid., p.  218.
65. House, On Saudi Arabia, p. 219.
66. For example, by way of its plans to build high-speed rail systems to
connect Riyadh and the Holy Cities with the Gulf, Jeddah, Jordan,
and Kuwait.
67. See the discussion in Chapter 6.
68. FO 967/55 (1933) ‘Local Government. Dabbagh Conspiracy’.
69. Justin Dargin, Desert Dreams: The Quest for Arab Integration from the Arab
Revolt to the Gulf Cooperation Council, Dordrecht: Republic of Letters
Publishing, 2011, p. 195.
70. See Roger Owen, ‘Arab Integration in Historical Perspective: Are
There any Lessons?’, Arab Affairs 1, 6 (1988), pp. 41–51.
71. The Deauville Partnership was launched in May 2011 by the G8 in
response to the far-reaching changes under way in several MENA
countries (the Arab Uprisings). It was ‘launched as a long-term, global
initiative that provides Arab countries in transition with a framework
based on technical support to: (i) strengthen governance for transpar-
ent, accountable governments; and (ii) provide an economic frame-

482
 notes pp. [362–365]
work for sustainable and inclusive growth’. For context and more
information see OECD, ‘The Deauville Partnership and the MENA-
OECD Initiative’, available at https://www.oecd.org/fr/sites/mena/
investissement/thedeauvillepartnership.htm, last accessed 25 March  

2017.
72. Jean-Pierre Chauffour, From Political to Economic Awakening in the Arab
World: The Path of Economic Integration, Washington DC: World Bank,
2013, available at https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/han-
dle/10986/12221, last accessed, 25 March 2017.
 

73. ESCWA, Arab Integration: A 21st Century Development Imperative, Beirut:

ESCWA/United Nations, 2014, available at https://www.unescwa.
org/sites/www.unescwa.org/files/publications/files/e_escwa_
oes_13_3_e.pdf, last accessed 25 March 2017.
 

74. The most important reason behind the failure of these attempts was
that the final agreements reached were nothing but a compromise
between an Egyptian proposal for full economic union with common
directions and policies, and the desire of other states to go no further
than the creation of a regional market for certain goods by means of
the reduction or elimination of certain barriers.
75. Owen, ‘Arab Integration’, p. 47.
76. See Jamel Zarrouk, ‘The Greater Arab Free Trade Area: Limits and
Possibilities’, in Bernard M. Hoekman and Jamel Zarrouk (eds.),
 

Catching Up with the Competition: Trade Opportunities and Challenges for the
Arab Countries, Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, pp. 285–305.
77. For an updated, concise presentation of the Arab League see ‘Profile:
Arab League’, BBC News, 24 August 2017, available at http://www.
 

bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-15747941, last accessed 25 March  

2017.
78. See Zarrouk, ‘The Greater Arab Free Trade Area’, especially the sub-
section ‘Harnessing Trade’.
79. Chauffour, From Political to Economic Awakening in the Arab World, p. 1.
80. Part of a broader proposal that was submitted to the World Economic
Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Middle East
(GAC-FME) by Institution Quraysh for Law and Policy (iQ) in Octo­
ber 2009.
81. For more information on the initiative see the Joint Political
Declaration as published by the Turkish Foreign Ministry: ‘Joint
Political Declaration on the Establishment of the High Level
Cooperation Council among Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon’, avail-
able at http://www.mfa.gov.tr/joint-political-declaration-on-the-esth-
ablishement-of-the-high-level-cooperation-council-among-turkey_-
syria_-jordan-and-lebanon.en.mfa, last accessed 5 April 2017.
 

483
pp. [365–367] Notes
82. See, for context, Aslı Ilgıt and Rochelle Davis, ‘The Many Roles of
Turkey in the Syrian Crisis’, MERIP Online, 28 January 2013, avail-
 

able at http://www.merip.org/mero/mero012813, last accessed

5 April 2017.
 

83. Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Joint Political

Declaration’.
84. The relevant organizations that are excluded from this list are the
Muslim World Assembly and the Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC), because of their specific agendas and
wider international remits.
85. Arguably, the TTIP had started losing popularity in Europe too after
the Brexit vote, especially in Germany and France. See, for context,
Rem Korteweg, ‘The End of the Transatlantic Trade Consensus?’
Centre for European Reform (CER), Insight, 21 February 2017, avail-
 

able at https://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/insight_
RK_21.2.17.pdf, last accessed 5 April 2017.
 

86. See François Godement and Agatha Kratz (eds.), ‘“One Belt, One
Road”: China’s Great Leap Outward’, European Council on Foreign
Relations (ECFR) China Analysis, 10 June 2015, available at http://
 

www.ecfr.eu/page/-/China_analysis_belt_road.pdf, last accessed

5 April 2017. Importantly, China has been employing a long-term
 

strategy towards infrastructure and development in Africa as well—

including an important energy component. In other words, the global
milieu-shaping efforts are an ongoing multi-layered process from
China’s perspective. See, for instance, Nida Jafrani, ‘China’s Growing
Role in Africa: Myths and Facts’, International Economic Bulletin,
Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
9 February 2012, available at http://carnegieendowment.
 

org/2012/02/09/china-s-growing-role-in-africa-myths-and-facts-
pub-47140, last accessed 5 April 2017; David Dollar, ‘Setting the
 

Record Straight on China’s Engagement in Africa’, Brookings, 11 July

 

2016, available at https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-

chaos/2016/07/11/setting-the-record-straight-on-chinas-engagement-
in-africa/, last accessed 5 April 2012. Yeroen van der Leer and Joshua
 

Yau, ‘China’s New Silk Route: The Long and Winding Road’, PwC’s
Growth Markets Centre, February 2016, available at https://www.
pwc.com/gx/en/growth-markets-center/assets/pdf/china-new-silk-
route.pdf, last accessed 5 April 2017.
 

87. Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, London and
Oxford: Bloomsbury, 2015.
88. Among them, the Chinese president and the Chinese leadership, which
strongly ties development initiatives and economic progress with peace
and security. See, for example, Lina Benabdallah, ‘China’s Peace and

484
 notes pp. [367–369]
Security Strategies in Africa: Building Capacity is Building Peace?’
African Studies Quarterly 16, 3–4 (2016), pp. 17–34, at p. 19.
89. To cite one example, see Jikkie Verlare and Frans Paul van der Putten,
‘One Belt, One Road’: An Opportunity for the EU’s Security Strategy,
Clingendael: Netherlands Institute of International Relations, 2015.
90. For further analysis and additional context see Malik R. Dahlan  

‘Rethinking Regional Organization in the Gulf and Middle East’, in

M. Hudson and M. Kirk (eds.), Gulf Politics and Economics in a Changing
   

World, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., 2014; Malik

R. Dahlan, ‘Rethinking Global Redesign and Regional Organization’,
 

in Gulf Politics and Economics in a Changing World, World Scientific, 2009,

available at http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789
814566209_0007
91. Andrew Moravcsik, ‘Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of
International Politics’, International Organization 51, 4 (1997), pp. 513–
53.
92. Anne-Marie Slaughter, Andrew S. Tulumello, and Stepan Wood,
 

‘International Law and International Relations Theory: A New

Generation of Interdisciplinary Scholarship’, American Journal of Inter­
national Law 92, 3 (1998), pp. 367–97.
93. See Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999.
94. See Sungjoon Cho, ‘Rethinking APEC: A New Experiment for a Post-
Modern Institutional Arrangement’, in Mitsuo Matsushita and Dukgeun
Ahn (eds.), WTO and East Asia: New Perspectives, London: Cameron May,
2004.
95. Ibid.
96. Note that the arguments for legalization under international organiza-
tion theory evaluate some systems as having strong legalization and
others having softer legalization. Regardless, there always exists a cer-
tain level of legalization.
97. For example, ‘negotiation theory’ would focus on the idea of interest-
based interaction among states, meaning the creation of options
through principled negotiation, as opposed to positional, power-based
negotiation.
98. APEC’s flexibility makes it easier for developing countries to assess
their commitments when it comes to the pressure of deregulation and
liberalization. Sungjoon Cho, ‘Breaking the Barrier between Region­
alism and Multilateralism: A New Perspective on Trade Regionalism’,
Harvard International Law Journal 42, 2 (2001), pp. 419–65. APEC is
institutionalized in such a way that it advances transgovernmental net-
working, which promotes regulatory cooperation. Further to that, it

485
pp. [371–373] Notes
 is the ‘private’ involvement in APEC that seems like a tradition in
the region, with businesses often playing a critical and sometimes
constructive role in operating institutions’: Cho, ‘Rethinking APEC’.
99. In December 2011, following a proposal by King Abdullah ibn
Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia to form a ‘single entity’, the GCC closing
statement of the thirty-second session and the Riyadh Declaration
affirmed the GCC’s commitment to ‘coordination, integration and
interdependence among Member States’, while aiming to achieve
‘greater coherence, unity, strength and well-being’. The Riyadh
Declaration also gave the ‘development of defense and security coop-
eration’ as a goal. For the full text of GCC closing statement and
the 2011 Riyadh Declaration see ‘32nd GCC Summit Final Statement
and Riyadh Declaration’, Saudi–US Relations Information Service
(SUSRIS), 21 December 2011, available at http://susris.com/2011/
 

12/21/32nd-gcc-summit-final-statement-and-riyadh-declaration/, last
accessed 25 March, 2017.
 

100. See ibid.: King Abdullah called for the formation of a ‘single entity’,
and a plan was put forward for tighter financial and military integra-
tion, as well as foreign policy convergence.
101. The inception of the Peninsula Shield (renamed the Peninsula Shield
Force) dates to 1981. Beyond deterrence, it is an effort to advance
cooperation and readiness through joint exercises, training, and multi-
layered confidence-building socialization. It has had a dynamic evo-
lution through time, in response or reaction to external develop-
ments. After 2006 the Peninsula Shield Force’s strength and scope
extended significantly. For further context, background, and analysis
of the GCC’s efforts in this realm see Zafer Muhammad Alajmi, ‘Gulf
Military Cooperation: Tangible Gains or Limited Results?’, Al Jazeera
Centre for Studies, Dossiers, 31 March 2015, available at http://
 

studies.aljazeera.net/en/dossiers/2015/03/201533164429153675.
html, last accessed 25 March 2017.
 

102. See ‘GCC–US Strategic Cooperation Forum 4th Ministerial Meeting’,

Saudi–US Relations Information Service (SUSRIS), 26 September
 

2014, available at http://susris.com/2014/09/26/gcc-us-strategic-

cooperation-forum-4th-ministerial-meeting-communique/, last
accessed 5 April 2017. Also, see for context, Imad Harb, ‘The Return
 

of Strong GCC–US Strategic Relations’, National Council on US–

Arab Relations (NCUSAR), 26 November 2014, available at https://
 

ncusar.org/blog/2014/11/return-strong-gcc-us-strategic-
relations/#footnote_3_3851, last accessed 5 April 2017.
 

103. ‘37th GCC Summit Issues Final Communiqué’, Arab News,

8 December 2016, available at http://www.arabnews.com/node/
 

1021001/saudi-arabia, last accessed 5 April 2017.

 

486
 notes pp. [373–381]
104. See for instance the nine-point GCC–UK joint communiqué with
the strategic overview of this partnership and cooperation: ‘Gulf
Co-operation Council–United Kingdom, First Summit 6 to
7 December 2016, Kingdom of Bahrain: Joint Communiqué’, avail-
 

able at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gulf-co-oper-
ation-council-united-kingdom-first-summit-joint-communique/gulf-
co-operation-council-united-kingdom-first-summit-6-to-7-december-
2016-kingdom-of-bahrain-joint-communique, last accessed 5 April  

2017.
105. See Dahlan, ‘Rethinking Regional Organization’; Dahlan, ‘Rethinking
Global Redesign’.
106. Arguably, as we have seen and discussed, every era has had its Faith
Militant strands and their exponents, from the religious violence in
Europe, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Wars of Religion, and
other extreme practices of the past, to certain extreme religious
strands or individuals stemming out of the Islamic world—such as
the Ikhwan, al-Qaida, DA’ISH, and so forth. Overall, we have to
safeguard our nations, religions, societies, and global peace in the
face of the rise of extremism—out of any sect or strand of faith and
thought. Greater dialogue and understanding is needed; and the
model proposed here can help advance it.

CONCLUSION
1. For further context and analysis on the birth of Hizb al-Tahrir see Shaul
Bartal, Jihad in Palestine: Political Islam and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict,
Israeli History, Politics and Society 57, Abingdon: Routledge, 2016,
chap. 5, ‘Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami Arises’.
 

2. Reza Pankhurst, The Inevitable Caliphate? A History of the Struggle for

Global Islamic Union, 1924 to the Present, London: Hurst, 2013.
3. Kersten (ed.), The Caliphate and Islamic Statehood Formation, vol. 3, p. 4.
4. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, The Future of Islam, London: Kegan Paul, Trench
& Co., 1882
5. It was reminiscent of the confrontation with the Khawarij separatists of
the seventh century and their adoption of the Prophetic Banner. In this
way, it was a symbolic counter-attack against the rise of DA’ISH.
6. Emad Yusif, al-Hijaz fi al-‘Ahd al-‘Uthmani [The Hijaz in the Ottoman
era], Beirut: al-Warrak Publishing, 2005, p. 41.
7. Al-Tayyib, al-Azhar fi Muwajahat al-Fikr al-Irhabi.
8. For an expert strategic analysis of the coalition and its implications,
including the Iran dimension and its reaction, see Dhrubajyoti
Bhattacharjee, ‘The Saudi Led Islamic Alliance: An Assessment’, 13 May  

487
pp. [381–388] Notes
 2016, Indian Council of World Affairs, Issue Brief, available at http://
icwa.in/pdfs/IB/2014/TheSaudiLedIslamicAllianceIB13052016.pdf,
last accessed 26 March 2017.
 

9. Noah Browning and John Irish, ‘Saudi Arabia Announces 34-State

Islamic Military Alliance against Terrorism’, Reuters, 15 December
 

2015, available at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-security-

idUSKBN0TX2PG20151215, last accessed 26 March 2017.
 

10. ‘Saudi Arabia Forms Muslim “Anti-Terrorism” Coalition’, Al-Jazeera,

15 December 2015, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/saudi-
 

arabia-forms-muslim-anti-terrorism-coalition-151215035914865.html,
last accessed 26 March 2017.
 

11. ‘Transcript of President Trump’s Speech in Riyadh’, VOA News,

21 May 2017, available at https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-
 

speech-in-riyadh/3864144.html, last accessed 24 June 2017.

 

12. Royal Order to Adopt Provisions of Traffic Law, Executive Regulations,

including Issuance of Driving Licenses for Males, Females alike; see
http://www.spa.gov.sa/1671331
13. Royal Decree No. 35/A of 17–10–2017, Establishment of the
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abalaziz
Repository the Prophetic Hadith. See http://www.spa.gov.sa/view-
fullstory.php?lang=en&newsid=1679758
14. Statement by Crown Prince Mohammad ibn Salman on October 24
2017 during the Future Investment initiative Forum in Riyadh. See
also Salman al-Ansari, ‘Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s
Three-Pronged Approach to Counter-Terrorism’, ed. Majid Rafizadeh,
Harvard University, report no. 24539, available at https://scholar.har-
vard.edu/majidrafizadeh/publications/PrinceHarvardAlAnsari
15. Chris Thornhill, A Sociology of Constitutions: Constitutions and State
Legitimacy in Historical–Sociological Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2011, p. 18.
16. Ibid., p.  17.
17. Thomas Franck, ‘The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance,
American Journal of International Law 86, 1 (1992), pp. 46–91, esp.
p. 90: ‘The entitlement to democracy in international law has gone
through both a normative and a customary evolution. It has evolved
both as a system of rules and in the practice of states and organiza-
tions. This evolution has occurred in three phases. First came the nor-
mative entitlement to self-determination. Then came the normative
entitlement to free expression as a human right. Now we see the
emergence of a normative entitlement to a participatory electoral pro-
cess. The democratic entitlement, despite its newness, already enjoys
a high degree of legitimacy, derived both from various texts and from

488
 notes pp. [388–392]
the practice of global and regional organizations, supplemented by that
of a significant number of non-governmental organizations. These texts
and practices have attained a surprising degree of specificity, given the
newness of the entitlement and especially of its requirement for free
and open elections.’
18. Feldman, ‘Constitutionalism, Deliberative Democracy and Human
Rights’, p. 458.
19. Al-Jundi, Iqtitaf al-Zahr wa Ijtina’ al-Thamr fi Haq al-Shu‘ub fi Taqrir al-
Masir, p. 18.

EPILOGUE
1. Caliph, guardian, or successive authority.
2. Qur’an 2:30. ‫اعلٌ فِي األَر ْ ِض َخلِيفَ ًة‬ َ ُّ ‫ وَ ِإذ ْ قَالَ رَب‬:‫قال اهلل تعالى‬
ِ ‫ك لِل َْمال َئِكَ ِة ِإن ِّي َج‬
‫َك‬َ ‫ك وَنُقَ دِّ ُس ل‬ َ ‫ح ُن ن ُ َسبِّ ُح ب ِ َح ْم ِد‬
ْ َ ‫ك الدِّ َماء وَن‬
ُ ‫س ِف‬ ْ َ ‫يها وَي‬
َ ِ‫ْس ُد ف‬ ِ ‫يها َمن يُف‬ َ ِ‫قَالُوا ْ أ َ جَت ْ َعلُ ف‬
‫َم َما ال َ ت َ ْعل َُمو َن‬ َ
ُ ‫قَالَ ِإن ِّي أ ْعل‬
3. See Martin Lings, Mecca: From before Genesis until Now, Cambridge:
Archetype, 2004.
4. In Psalm 84 which begins with the words: ‘How amiable are Thy tab-
ernacles, O Lord of hosts’, there is a reference to Hagar and her son:
‘Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee, in whose heart are the
ways who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well’ (5–6); see
ibid., p. 5.
5. See Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, translated
by F. Rosenthal, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967.
 

489
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515
 INDEX

Aaland Islands, xxv, 159, 179 Abdullah ibn Faisal, Emir of Najd,
Abbas Hilmi, Khedive of Egypt, 293, 294
120 Abdulmajid II, Ottoman Sultan,
‘Abbas I, Shah of Iran, 309–15, 387 139, 346
Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258), 4, Abisaab, Rula, 309
17, 47, 48, 72, 340, 341 Abkhazia, 173, 185
ABC strategy, 261 Aboul-Enein,Youssef H., 285
‘Abdal-Malik ibn Marwan, Abraham, 391
Umayyad Caliph, 47 Abrahamian, Ervand, 59, 450
al-Abdali, Khalid ibn Luwai, 101, Abu Bakr, Rashidun Caliph, 3,
109 44–5, 147, 394, 399
Abdel Raziq, ‘Ali, 18, 144, 145–9, Abu Dhabi, 247
200, 422 Abu Khalil, As’ad, 306
‘Abduh, Muhammad, 58, 137, 138, Abu Manneh, Butrus, 24
299, 300, 316, 335, 343, 345 Abyssinia, see Ethiopia
Abdulhamid II, Ottoman Sultan, Aden,Yemen, 79, 90
72, 144, 145, 344, 378 al-Afghani, Jamal al-Din, 58, 138,
Abdullah I, King of Jordan, 24 299–300, 302, 316, 343–4, 378,
assassination (1951), 231 477
and Caliphate, 97 Afghanistan, 8
and Hijaz Liberation Party, 118, Bamiyan Buddhas, destruction of
119, 120, 121, 122 (2001), 266
Kitchener’s message (1914), 77 DA’ISH, 283, 324
and Najd–Hijaz conflict (1924– Durant Line, 456
5), 108, 109 foreign fighters, 324
and Turkish nationalists, 135 Ibn Saud, relations with, 110
Abdullah ibn Abdulaziz, King of revivalism, 302
Saudi Arabia, 371, 486 Saur Revolution (1978), 258

517
 INDEX
Shi’ites, 320
Soviet War (1979–89), 20, 207,
215, 256–63, 271, 279, 280,
281, 323, 326–7, 356, 454–6
Taliban, 216, 256, 261, 263–6,
267–9, 274, 320, 323, 457
as terrorist safe haven, 268
US-led war (2001–14), 9, 265,
266, 274, 282, 294
Aflaq, Michel, 221–2
African Union (AU), 17, 64, 369
Agreement for Facilitation and
Promotion of Intra-Arab Trade
(1981), 364
Aguilar Amory Corporation, 128
al-‘Ahd, 79
Ahkam al-Sultaniyya (al-Mawardi),
44
ahl al-bayt, 311, 379
ahl al-hall wa al-‘aqd, 288, 289,
346, 399, 462
al-Ahsa’, see al-Hasa
Ahwazi Arabs, 60, 473
Ajman, 247
Akhbaris, 313
al-‘Alaqat bayn al-Dawla al-
‘Uthmaniyya wa Iqlim al-Hijaz
(Sawaf), 24
Alawites, 276
Albanians, Albania, 6, 185, 353
Aleppo, Syria, 79, 91, 277
Algeria, 83, 223, 233, 249, 345,
363, 467, 477
‘Ali ibn al-Hussein, King of Hijaz,
102, 105, 106, 107–9, 120
‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, Rashidun Caliph,
3, 4, 16, 296, 315, 316, 394
‘Alids, 311, 316
Allenby, Edmund, 1st Viscount
Allenby, 81, 220
Almohad Caliphate (1121–1269),
48
518
Alpharabius, 342–3
Alsace-Lorraine, 158
alternative dispute crisis resolution
(ADR), 370
American Declaration of
Independence (1776), 161
Amnesty International, 242
al-amr bi ’l-ma‘ruf wa ’l-nahy ‘an al-
munkar, 288
Ancient Sanctuary, 391
al-Andalus (711–1492), 57, 399
Anderson, Benedict, 52, 401
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
(AIOC), 238–9
Ansar, 2, 38, 39, 42, 44, 45, 149,
398, 399
Anschluss (1938), 217
Antonius, George, xxiv, 57
apartheid, 165–6
Aqaba, 122, 149
Aqquyunlu confederation (1378–
1501), 310, 469
Ara’ Ahl al-Madina al-Fadila, 342
Arab Awakening, The (Antonius),
xxiv, 57
Arab Bureau, xxiv, 28, 81, 87–8,
410
Arab Common Market, 363
Arab Cooperation Council, 364
Arab Human Development Report,
393–4
Arab League, 17, 215, 232, 248,
251–2, 363–5, 379, 386, 452
Arab Music Orchestra, xvii
Arab nationalism, 30, 75, 93
and Arab Revolt (1916–18),
74–82
Ba’athism, 221–2, 223, 225, 232
and Britain, 77–82
Damascus Protocol (1915), 78–9
and Faisal, 78, 91
and France, 82–4
 INDEX
and Gaddafi, 232
and Germany, 84
and Hussein of Jordan, 231
and Ibn Saud, 118
Nasserism, 219–27, 229–30,
232
pan-Arabism, 54, 220, 222–5,
226, 229–30, 256
Arab Neighbouring States Policy,
365
‘Arab race’, 88, 145
Arab renaissance (nahda), 79
Arab Revolt (1916–18), xxi–xxiii,
xxvii, 4, 5, 12–13, 74–82, 108,
115, 130, 137, 378, 405
and Caliphate, 75–6, 77, 78, 80
centennial celebrations (2016),
23
Damascus Protocol (1915), 78,
79
literature on, 24–30
McMahon–Hussein correspon-
dence (1915–16), 77, 79, 80,
116, 356
Arab Uprisings (2011), 9, 208,
268, 274, 280, 305, 307, 356,
365
Arab–Israeli conflict, 252, 253
1956 Suez Crisis, 219–20
1967 Six Day War, 9, 211, 255,
305
1973 October/Yom Kippur War,
63, 250
Arabic, 56, 91, 92, 138, 344
al-Arabiyya al-Fatat, 78–9
Arafat,Yasser, 472
Arjomand, Said Amir, 309, 311,
312, 316, 317
Armenia, 92, 163, 427
genocide (1914–23), 23
Arslan, Shakib, 138, 420
Articles on State Responsibility,
350
519
Asbab al-Thawra al-Arabiyya al-Kubra
(Zain), 24
al-Ash’ari, Abu Hassan, 335
Ash’ariyya school, 334–5
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC), 17, 254, 368–70, 373,
386, 485–6
al-Asil, Nadji, 136, 420
Asir region, 118, 120, 125
al-Askari, Jafar, 24, 420
al-Askari, Tahseen, 24
Asrar al-Thawra al-Arabiyya al-Kubra
wa Ma’sat al-Sharif Husayn (Said),
24
al-Assad, Bashar, 208, 255, 275
al-Assad, Hafez, 225
Association of Algerian Muslim
‘Ulama’, 345
Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN), 17
Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal, 97, 133–
4, 135, 136, 139, 234–5, 299
Atlantic Charter (1941), 166
al-Attafi, Amjad, xvii
Augsburg Settlement (1555), 10
Austin, Warren, 166
Austria-Hungary (1867–1918), 85,
132, 162, 164, 341
autonomy, 183–9
Avignon, 161
‘Awn al-Rafiq, Sharif of Makkah, 75
al-Awni, Hatim, 328–30, 475–6
al-Awwa, Mohamad Salim, 40–41,
46, 320–21, 398, 422
Ayubi, Nazih, 305
Azad, Abul Kalam, 347
Azerbaijan, 217
Azeris, 60, 473
al-Azhar, xxiv, 107, 132, 149,
226–7, 286, 295, 337, 379–80,
446
on Caliphate, succession of, 340
 INDEX
General Islamic Congress for the
Caliphate (1926), 138–42,
331, 378
International Conference on
Confronting Extremism and
Terrorism (2014), 331–3
and jihad, 335–6
and takfir, 335
Azores, 184
Aztec Empire (1430–1521), 33
Ba’ath Party
of Iraq, 157, 209, 221–2, 223,
225, 232, 286, 382
of Syria, 221–2, 223, 225, 232,
382
Babayan, Kathryn, 309, 310, 311,
314, 371
Babrak Karmal, 258
Baca, 391
Badie, Bertrand, 58
Badinter Commission, 159
Baghdad, 4, 17, 48, 84, 121, 285,
341
al-Baghdadi, Abu Bakr, 277
Bahai, Shaykh, 313
Bahrain, 7, 8, 9, 129, 252, 333,
359, 363, 371, 372, 453
Baker, Randall, 29
Balfour Declaration (1917), 80–81,
93, 94, 143, 144
Balkan wars (1912–13), 75
Bamiyan Buddhas, 266
Bangladesh, 302
al-Banna, Hassan, 146, 293–4, 316
Barrow, Clyde, 34
Basque Country, 185
Basra vilayet, 156
Battle of Mogadishu (1993), 271
Bautista Quiros, Juan, 128
bay‘a, 37, 44–5, 97, 111, 123, 137,
394
520
al-Bayhaqi, 62, 403
Bazargan, Mehdi, 242, 243
Bederman, David, 33
Bedouin, 36, 72, 75, 104, 288, 289
Belgium, 161, 185, 210
Ben Badis, Abdelhamid, 345, 477
Benedikter, Thomas, 185
Berlin–Baghdad railway, 84
Bermond, Édouard, 24
Biafra (1967–70), 192
bilad al-haramayn, 3, 21
Billi tribe, 120
Bin Atiq, Hamad, 293
Bin Baz, Abdulaziz, 284, 476
Bin Laden, Osama, 265, 268, 271,
272, 273, 281, 377–8, 459
Bingham, Thomas Henry, Baron
Bingham of Cornhill, 10
Birdwood, George, 145
Birth of Saudi Arabia, The (Troeller),
30
al-Bitar, Salah al-Din, 221
Black Sea, 255
Black September, 281
Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen, 145, 378
Bokhari, Kamran, 306
Boko Haram, 8, 210, 475
Bolsheviks, 80, 81, 84, 85, 91, 94,
161–2
Bosnia, 193, 252, 439
Bourbons, 9
Bremer, Paul, 285
Brennan, John, 273
Brexit (2016–), 186, 366, 484
Brezhnev, Leonid, 454
Britain, the Hashemites and Arab Rule
1920–1925 (Paris), 28
Buchanan, Allen, 435
Bulgaria, 353
Bullard, Reader, 101
Bullit, William, 85, 409
Bunzel, Cole, 284
 INDEX
Burkina Faso, 160
Bush, George Walker, 272, 273,
364
Byzantine Empire (285–1453), 33,
441
Cairo, Egypt, xvii, xxiv
al-Azhar University, see al-Azhar
Arab Bureau, xxiv, 28, 410
General Islamic Congress for the
Caliphate (1926), 138–42,
331
Hijazi Defence Association, 120
International Conference on
Confronting Extremism and
Terrorism (2014), 331–3
League of Arab States HQ, 248
Mamluk period (1250–1517),
17, 72, 341
al-Manar, 137
Caliphate, xxiv, 9, 13, 14–18,
21, 53, 132–53, 189, 340–49,
376–9
al-Azhar on, 340
and DA’ISH, 15, 21, 194, 269,
273, 277, 280, 286, 322–5,
331–3, 351, 356, 376, 382,
458
‘Declaration to the People on
the Matter of the Caliphate’
(1924), 139
European Muslim Congress
(1935), 143–4
evolution of, 47–9
General Islamic Congress
(1931), 142–3
General Islamic Congress for the
Caliphate (1926), 138–42,
331, 378
and Hijaz, control of, 72
and Hizb al-Tahrir, 347, 377
and Hussein, 75, 80, 96–7, 134,
135–7, 138, 189, 420
521
and Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, 289
as international cooperation,
65–7
and jurisprudence, 16, 144–53,
168
Khilafat Movement, 110, 111,
140, 143, 297, 378
and Muslim unity, 150–53
objectives, 45–7
and al-Qaida, 269–70, 273, 376,
377
and Quraysh, 13, 97, 136–7,
138, 140, 289, 347, 378
and revivalism, 300–302
and secret societies, 145
Shar’ia, 151, 282, 296
and succession, 42–5, 146–7
and sultat al-istila wa al-taghallub,
48, 349
and Wahhabism, 301
Cambodia, 190
Cambridge University, xxiv, 9
Cameroon, 218
Canada, 168–9, 174, 178, 180,
187, 192, 195, 365, 433
capacity building, 283
Carr, Edward Hallett, 85
Carter, Ashton, 381
Carter, James ‘Jimmy’, 257, 281,
455
cartography, 52
Casey, William, 261
Cassese, Antonio, 161, 177, 182
Catalonia, 185, 186–7, 437
Caucasus, 217, 255
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
239, 240, 259, 261, 262, 282,
456
Century of Arab Politics, A (Maddy-
Weitzman), 23
Chad, 218
Charlemagne, King of the Franks,
Holy Roman Emperor, 34
 INDEX
Chechnya, 185, 324
Cheney, Richard ‘Dick’, 273, 377
children, killing of, 37, 397
China, 11, 140, 188, 195, 196, 369
Japanese invasion of Manchuria
(1931), 129, 156, 164, 217,
350, 478
One Belt One Road, 367
Cho, Sungjoon, 368
Christianity, 9–11, 52, 57, 61, 84,
138, 403
Holy See, 182, 189, 195, 197–
202, 214, 340, 440, 441
Mount Athos, 195–6, 439
Churchill, Winston, 81, 114, 135,
166, 375
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 33
citizenship, 4, 40, 54, 55
city states, 16, 33, 34
civilization, 87
Clematis, HMS, 103
Cleveland, William, 221, 224, 232,
449, 451
Code of Hammurabi (c. 1754
BCE), 41
Cogan, Charles, 259, 262, 455
Cold War, 207, 215, 216, 219, 241,
254–7, 279
Egypt, 226, 230
Jordan, 232
League of Arab States, 248
Lebanon, 228
Morocco, 233
Saudi Arabia, 230, 232
Turkey, 236
Coll, Steven, 260, 261, 455
colonialism, 53, 58, 66, 88, 93,
94, 108, 119, 122, 131, 143–4,
153, 300
‘civilizing mission’, 342
decolonization, 215, 216,
218–40, 345, 444
522
and self-determination, 159–80,
192, 194, 300
Commander of the Faithful, 47,
54, 265
Committee for the Liberation of
the Maghreb, 249
Committee of Union and Progress
(CUP), 74, 75, 82, 346
communism, 222, 226, 227, 228,
327, 453
Communist Party of Iraq, 222
Community of Sahel and Saharan
States (CEN-SAD), 452
conditionalist Islamists, 306
Congo, 8, 190, 218, 434
Congress of Vienna (1815), 157
Constitution of Medina (622), 2, 4,
39–41, 62, 397–8
Constitutional Assembly (621), 149
constitutive theory, 127, 128,
157–8, 173, 352
constructivism, 368
Consultative Council of the
Caliphate, 95
consultative councils (shura), 112,
114, 288–9, 345
Corfu, 217
Corsica, 185
Costa Rica, 128
Council of Ministers, 95
Council of Tribes, 121
Councils of Deputies and People,
95
Crawford, James, 128, 172, 173–4,
193, 418
Creation of Saudi Arabia, The (al-
Enazy), 27
Crimea, 13, 355
Crimean War (1853–6), 410
Critical Legal Studies (CLS), 11
Crusades, 57, 199, 440–41, 487
customary international law, 159,
178
 INDEX
Cyprus, 185, 365, 448
Czechoslovakia, 164, 165, 173–4,
176, 192, 217
DA’ISH, xxiv, 7, 9, 207–12, 216,
268, 273–8, 283–7, 322–33,
349–57, 372, 373, 381
and Boko Haram, 8, 210
and Caliphate, 15, 21, 194, 269,
273, 277, 280, 286, 322–5,
331–3, 351, 356, 376, 382,
458
and al-Durrar al-Saniyya fi al-
Ajwiba al-Najdiyya, 328–30
federalism, 283
and foreign fighters, 210, 212,
324
funding, 270
and Gulf Cooperation Council,
253
and hakimiyya, 329, 330
and Holy Lands, capture of, 20,
246, 277, 358, 382
iconoclasm, 266, 457
information and communication
technology (ICT), 327
and Kurds, 208
legal status, 349–55
al-mufasala al-jihadiyya, 322, 328
Najd wilayah, 351
neo-medievalism, 7, 21, 22,
188, 207, 269, 282–3, 286–7,
322–31, 350–55
and al-salafiyya al-jihadiyya,
326–31
and Saudi Arabia, 21, 283–7,
351, 358
sectarianism, 323
and Soviet–Afghan War, 256, 262
and Sykes–Picot Agreement
(1916), 277, 280, 356
takfir, 286, 328–30, 475
523
territory, size of, 277, 323
terror attacks, 209–10, 272, 277
and Wahhabism, 274, 276,
283–7
al-wala’ wa al-bara’ (loyalty and
disavowal), 322, 329
Da’ish from Najdi to Baghdadi
(Ibrahim), 285–6
al-Dabbagh, Hussein, 118, 120,
143
al-Dabbagh, Tahir, 105, 106, 118,
121
Dahlan, Abdullah, xxiii, 107, 140
Damad, Mir, 313
Damascus
Damascus Protocol (1915), 78–9
in ‘General Organic Law of the
Arab Empire’ (Rida), 76
German Intelligence Bureau, 84
Umayyad period (661–750), 4,
17, 45, 47, 72, 341
dar al-‘ahd, 400
dar al-harb, 47, 300, 400
dar al-islam, 47, 56, 148, 300, 348,
400
Dar al-Ward, 25
Darfur, 181
Darin Pact (1915), 80, 115, 116,
447
dawla, 35, 47, 51, 54
Dawn, Ernest, 25, 30, 75
de-Baathification (2003–4), 209,
286
Deauville Partnership, 362, 364–5,
382–3
Declaration of Independence, US
(1776), 161
Declaration on Principles of
International Law (1970), 160,
168, 175, 179, 180, 426, 430,
434
Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples (2007), 169
 INDEX
Declaration to the People on the
Matter of the Caliphate (1924),
139
Declaration to the Seven (1918),
81
declaratory theory, 127, 128, 158,
173, 352, 418
decolonization, 215, 216, 218–40,
345, 444
democracy, 297, 326, 333, 337,
362, 364
deliberative, 182, 388
entitlement to, 182, 388, 435,
488–9
and hakimiyya, 297
internal self-determination,
181–2
and Islamism, 306–7
in Turkey, 235, 240, 308
Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC), 8, 190, 434
Democratic Republic of Vietnam
(1945–76), 172
Deutsche Continental Gas
Gesellschaft Arbitration (1929),
159
developing nations, 218
Devlin, John, 223
devolution max, 176, 183
Dhawi-‘Awn, 74, 145
Dhawi-Zayd, 74
Diana, 103
Dillard, Hardy Cross, 170
Dir‘iyya Emirate (1744–1818), 5,
99–100, 134, 288–90, 292, 294,
323, 412, 464
dislocative nationalism, 56, 402
diwan, 47, 54
Diyala, 277
doctrine of three elements, 158
Drei Elementen Lehre (Jellinek), 158
drug trafficking, 267
524
Dubai, 247
dudman, 54
Duijzings, Gerlachlus, 53
Durant Line, 456
al-Durrar al-Saniyya fi al-Ajwiba al-
Najdiyya, 291, 328–30
East Timor, 171, 190, 192
Ecuador, 126
Edinburgh Agreement (2012),
175–6
Egypt, 65
‘Ali’s intervention request
(1925), 109
Arab Common Market agree-
ment (1964), 363
Arab Cooperation Council,
foundation of (1989), 364
and Arab Neighbouring States
Policy, 365
al-Azhar University, see al-Azhar
University
and Congress of the Islamic
World (1926), 142
coup (2013), 307
and DA’ISH, 209, 351, 359
Deauville Partnership, 365
‘Declaration to the People on
the Matter of the Caliphate’
(1924), 139
foreign fighters, 211
General Islamic Congress for the
Caliphate (1926), 138–42,
331, 378
and Hijaz Liberation Party, 118,
120, 121, 122, 123
and Ibn Rifada’s uprising (1932),
120
Ibn Saud, relations with, 110, 141
International Conference on
Confronting Extremism and
Terrorism (2014), 331–3
 INDEX
Islamic Jihad, 460
Israel, relations with, 63, 248,
452
League of Arab States, founda-
tion of (1945), 248, 364
al-Manar, 137
Mohammad ‘Ali, reign of
(1805–48), 6, 73, 100, 290,
292, 294, 412
Muslim Brotherhood, see under
Muslim Brotherhood
Napoleonic invasion (1798–
1801), 299
Nasserism, 219–27, 229–30,
279
as nation state, 53
October War (1973), 63, 250
Revolution (1952), 220
Revolution (2011), 209, 268,
304, 305, 307
Saudi Arabia, relations with, 359
Second World War (1939–45),
217
Shura Council, creation of
(1981), 303
Six Day War (1967), 9, 211, 255,
305
Soviet Union, relations with,
255, 256, 279
Suez Crisis (1956), 219–20
takfir of, 330
as terrorist safe haven, 268
United Arab Republic (1958–
61), 224, 229, 247, 255
Wahhabi War (1811–18), 100,
290, 292, 294, 464
Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), 460
Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648),
401
emic and etic, 35
Emirate of Dir‘iyya, see Dir‘iyya
Emirate
525
Emirate of Najd, see Najd Emirate
Emirate of Riyadh, see Riyadh,
Emirate of
empirical question, 172
al-Enazy, Askar, 27, 101, 104
England, 52, 116, 186
see also United Kingdom
Enlightenment, 11, 22, 376
Erdogan, Recep Tayyip, 308
erga omnes, 192, 479
Eritrea, 118, 119
Esposito, John, 287, 325, 326
Estonia, 162
Ethiopia, 8, 36, 217, 255
ethnic identity, 53
ethnocentric nationalism, 13, 21,
52–3, 78, 91–2, 93, 119
European Coal and Steel
Community, 363
European Customs Union, 236
European Economic Community
(EEC), 236, 363
European Muslim Congress
(1935), 143–4
European Union (EU), 8, 64, 159,
201, 249, 366, 369, 380, 385,
453
Brexit (2016–), 186, 366, 484
foreign fighters, 210
refugee crisis (2015–), 275
and terrorism, 211
and Turkey, 236, 308
and Union for the Mediterranean
(UfM), 364
Eve, 391
exit visas, 41
Fahmi, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, 149
Faisal I, King of Syria and Iraq, 28
and Allenby, 81–2
and Damascus Protocol (1915),
79
 INDEX
as ‘King of Arabia’, 137
and nationalism, 78, 91
Oppenheim, meeting with
(1915), 84
Paris Peace Conference (1919),
90–92
and Treaty of Sèvres (1920), 92
and Turkish nationalists, 135
Faisal II, King of Iraq, 224
Faisal ibn Abdulaziz, King of Saudi
Arabia, 114, 123, 229, 294, 380
Faisal ibn Turki, Emir of Najd, 293
Faith Militant, 13, 209, 267, 270,
278, 287, 289, 307, 323, 325,
349, 373, 377, 380, 487
Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, The
(Feldman), 282
‘far enemy’, 304, 326
al-Farabi, 342–3
Faroe Islands, 184
al-Farouqi, Mohammad Sharif, 78
Faruq I, King of Egypt, 220
fascism, 164
Fashoda incident (1898), 73
fasiq, 334
al-Fatat, see al-Arabiyya al-Fatat
Fatherland, 59, 156
Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171), 48,
72, 340, 341
fatwas, 226, 272, 283–4, 301
al-Fawaz, Kulaib, 23
federalism, 247
Federation of Iraq and Jordan
(1958), 224, 247
Feldman, Noah, 182, 282
feudalism, 48–9, 51
Finland, xxv, 427
First World War (1914–18)
Arab Revolt (1916–18), xxi–
xxiii, xxvii, 4, 5, 12–13,
74–80, 108, 115, 130, 137,
378, 405
526
Darin Pact (1915), 80, 115, 116,
228, 417, 447
al-Farouqi desertion (1915), 78
Gallipoli Campaign (1915–16),
78, 84
Ottoman entry (1914), 77
Russian withdrawal (1917), 81,
85
fitna, 288
foreign fighters, 210–11, 212
formalism, 59
Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia (FYROM), 353–4,
355
forum shopping, 127
Foundational Instructions (1926),
114
Four Key Concepts of the Quran (al-
Mawdudi), 317
Fourteen Points (1918), 84–6, 93,
163, 428
France, 82–4
Algeria, colonial (1830–1962),
83, 233, 345, 467, 477
Alsace–Lorraine, 158
Congress of Vienna (1815), 157
Damascus, capture of (1920), 96
Deauville Partnership, 365
Fashoda incident (1898), 73
foreign fighters, 210
and General Islamic Congress for
the Caliphate (1926), 141
Kellogg–Briand Pact (1928),
xxvi, 126, 129, 478
Lebanese Mandate (1920–43),
227
Libya intervention (2011), 275
and McMahon–Hussein corre-
spondence (1915–16), 77
Morocco Protectorate (1912–
56), 233
Ottoman Empire, relations with,
341, 342
 INDEX
Paris Peace Conference (1919),
90, 91
Revolution (1789), 33, 161, 319
and Siege of Makkah (1979), 246
Spain, relations with, 342
Sykes–Picot Agreement (1916),
3, 12, 80, 82, 87, 90, 116,
163, 277, 279, 280, 282, 356
Suez Crisis (1956), 220
Syrian Mandate (1923–46), 81,
135, 445
and terrorism, funding of, 211
terrorist attacks, 9
Thirty Years War (1618–48), 9
Turkish War of Independence
(1919–21), 235
and Union for the Mediterranean
(UfM), 364
and United Nations, 165
Vichy government (1940–44),
217
Francis, Pope, 201–2
Franck, Thomas, 168, 182, 388,
435, 488–9
Frankish Empire (481–843), 34
Frankopan, Peter, 367
Free Officers, 221
Freedom Movement, 242, 243
Freeman, Charles, 401
Friendly Relations Declaration
(1970), 160, 168, 175, 179,
180, 426, 430, 434
From Ottomanism to Arabism (Dawn),
25
From Political to Economic Awakening
in the ArabWorld, 362
Fuad I, King of Egypt, 109, 138,
141, 149
Fujairah, 247
futuhat, 45, 47
Future is for this Religion, The
(Khamenei), 316
527
Gaddafi, Muammar, 225, 226, 232,
256, 448, 452
Gallipoli Campaign (1915–16),
78, 84
Galster, Steven, 257–8
Gandhi, Mohandas, 143, 219
Gaugazia, 188
de Gaulle, Charles, 445
General Islamic Congress (1931),
142–3
General Islamic Congress for the
Caliphate (1926), 138–42
General Organic Law of the Arab
Empire, The’ (Rida), 76
Geneva, Switzerland, 15, 92,
143–4
Geneva Conventions, 193
Georgia, 173, 185
Germany
and Alsace–Lorraine, 158
Anschluss (1938), 217
Czechoslovakia, invasion of
(1938), 164, 217
Deauville Partnership, 365
Deutsche Continental Gas Ge-
sellschaft Arbitration (1929),
159
First World War (1914–18), 84,
130, 408–9
foreign fighters, 210
Holocaust (1941–5), 23
and Mandate System, 87, 89, 95
Munich Olympics terror attack
(1972), 281
Nazi period (1933–45), 164,
217, 229, 232, 236
Ottoman Empire, relations with,
341
reparations, 87
Second World War (1939–45),
217, 229, 232, 236
Treaty of Versailles (1919), 94,
234
 INDEX
and Union for the Mediterranean
(UfM), 364
Ghalib, Sharif of Makkah, 100
Ghana, 218
al-Ghannouchi, Rashid, 297, 307,
422
al-Ghaseen, Faiz, 24
al-Ghazali, 54, 57
al-Ghazzah Palace, Makkah, xxii
al-Ghifari, Abu Dhar, 469
Ghulams, 310, 312
ghulat, 311, 312
Ghyiath al-Umam fi Iltiyath al-Zulam
(al-Juwayni), 145
global state, 342
Government of the Islamic Jurist
(Khomeini), seeVelayat-e Faqih
Grand Mosque, Makkah, xxiii,
19–20, 73, 107, 132, 337, 351,
382
bay‘a to Ibn Saud (1926), 110
Caliphate, jurisprudential views
on, 152–3
and Dhawi-‘Awn, 74
Freedom of Islamic affiliation, 20
Siege (1979), 245–6, 355, 382
Great Depression (1929–39), 216
Greater Arab Free Trade Area
(GAFTA), 364
Greater Middle East initiative
(2004), 364
Greece
city-states, 33, 34
genocide (1913–22), 23
Macedonia dispute, 353–4, 355
Mount Athos, 195–6, 439
Turkish War (1919–22), 235
Greenland, 184
Grotius, Hugo, 11, 33, 61
Group of 8 (G8), 362, 364–5
Guinea, 218
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC),
528
8, 17, 211, 215, 228, 252–4,
278, 363, 371–3, 386
Peninsula Shield Force, 253,
372, 486
Ramadan Crisis (2017), 8–9,
212, 379
Gulf War (1990–91), 155–7, 180,
193, 248, 252, 280, 294, 356,
465
Habsburgs, 9
Haddad, Mahmoud, 306
Hadiths, 66, 293, 301, 314, 383
Hadramaut, xxii
Hagar, 391
hajj, 18, 72, 76, 169, 182–4,
191–2, 195–7, 200, 337, 351,
355, 362, 372, 377, 388
bombing (1989), 184, 355
bombing (2017), 382
and Dir‘iyya Emirate (1744–
1818), 290
fire (1997), 184
and Hijaz National Party, 119
and Ibn Saud, 112, 113, 142, 229
and India, 103, 108, 143
Iranian demonstrations and riot
(1987), 184, 355
al-Kawakibi on, 138, 345
and Kingdom of Hijaz (1916–
25), 83, 95, 101, 113
and Najd–Hijaz conflict (1924–
5), 101, 112, 113
stampedes, 184, 355, 481
and Sultan, 72
and Taif massacre (1926), 102,
103
al-hakimiyya, 139, 149, 295–8,
305, 306, 317, 329, 330, 466,
476
Hamadan, 313
Hamas, 212
 INDEX
Hamza ibn Abdul-Muttalib, 109
Hamza, Fuad, 121, 122–3
Han Empire (202 BCE–220 CE),
33
Hanbali school, 284, 383
al-Haraka al-Arabiyya (al-Musa), 24
Hardinge, Charles, 1st Baron
Hardinge of Penshurst, 92
Hartman, Andrew, 261
Harun al-Rashid, Abbasid Caliph,
47
Harvard Law School, 11, 282
al-Hasa, 100, 116, 246, 284
Hasan ibn ‘Ali, 393, 405
Hashemites, 4, 12, 19, 36, 72,
375–6, 392
and al-Afghani’s proposals, 344
and Arab nationalism, 78
and Committee of Union and
Progress, 74, 75
crimson standard, 378
and Federation of Iraq and Jor-
dan (1958), 224, 247
and Ibn Saud, 105, 115
and Quraysh, 4, 12, 19, 379, 399
and Rida’s proposals, 347
umma, leadership of, 4, 12, 36,
76
Hatay, 365
Hava, 391
Haydar, ‘Ali, 74
Hedjaz dans la Guerre Mondiale, Le
(Bermond), 24
Hegghammer, Thomas, 293
Heintze, Hans-Joachim, 183
Hejaz beforeWorldWar I (Hogarth),
xxiv, 25
Helsinki Final Act (1975), 160
Hezbollah, 208, 212, 281
Hidden Imam, 59, 244, 309, 312,
315, 320
High-Level Strategic Cooperation
Council (HLCC), 365
529
Hijaz, Kingdom of (1916–25),
74–97, 99–111, 118, 189, 375
Arab Revolt (1916–18), xxi–
xxiii, xxvii, 4, 5, 12–13,
74–80, 108, 115, 130
Hijaz National Party, 105–7,
109, 153, 216, 388
Najd, conquest by (1924–5),
xxv, xxvi, 6, 18, 20, 76,
97, 101–11, 134, 138, 155,
164–5, 413
Paris Peace Conference (1919),
xxv, 5, 84–93
Taif massacre (1924), 6, 23,
25–6, 101–5, 130, 164, 325,
375
Hijaz and Najd, Kingdom of
(1926–32), 113–24, 140, 141
Congress of the Islamic World
(1926), 140, 141, 142, 192
Hijaz Liberation Party, 118–23,
124, 361–2
Hijaz National Charter (1928),
6, 118–19, 216, 361–2
Hijaz National Party, 114
Hijazi Nationality Law (1926),
115
Ibn Rifada’s uprising (1932),
120, 122, 125
al-majlis al-ahli, 114
Sabala campaign (1929), 135
al-Ta‘limat al-Asasiyya (1926),
114, 141
Treaty of Jeddah (1927), 129,
165, 228, 447
and ulama, 113–14
Hijaz Liberation Party (HLP), 19,
118–23, 124, 361–2
Hijaz Maqam, xvii
Hijaz National Charter (1928), 6,
118–19, 216, 361–2
Hijaz National Party (HNP),
105–7, 109, 114, 118, 216, 388
 INDEX
Hijaz Railway, 75
al-Hijaz wa al-Wahabiyyun (Rida),
76
Hijazi language, 19–20
Hijra (622), 37–8, 39, 389, 398,
399
Hinduism, 11, 264
Hitler, Adolf, 164
Hizb al-Tahrir, 347, 377
Hoffman, Bruce, 459
Hogarth, David George, xxiv, 25,
79, 81, 88, 410
Holsti, Kalevi Jaakko, 127, 157
Holy Roman Empire (800–1806),
400–401
Holy See, 182, 189, 195, 197–202,
214, 340, 440, 441
Hong Kong, 188, 195, 196
Horn of Africa, 8, 73
Houkumat-i Islami (Khomeini), see
Velayat-e Faqih
House, Karen, 358, 360
Howarth, David, 29
Hudaybiyya treaty (628), 62, 63,
404
hukm, 66, 297
Human Rights Council, 15
human rights, 12, 167–8, 179–81,
192, 242
Humphreys, R. Stephen, 231
Huns, 34
al-Huseyni, Amin, 143
Hussein ibn ‘Ali, 290, 309, 314
Hussein, Sharif of Makkah, xxi–
xxii, xxiv, 12, 23, 24, 28, 29,
74–84
abdication (1924), 105, 106, 153
Arab nationalists, meetings with
(1911), 75
and Balfour Declaration (1917),
81, 93
and Battle of Turaba (1919), 100
530
and Caliphate, 75, 80, 96–7,
134, 135–7, 138, 189, 420
declaration of independence
(1916), 79–82, 83–4
France, relations with, 82–4
Germany, relations with, 84
Hogarth Message (1918), 88,
410
Ibn Saud, relations with,
100–105
as ‘King of Arabs’, 80, 83, 93,
105
as ‘King of Hijaz’, 80, 82, 84,
93, 137
and Mandate System, 92–7, 107
McMahon, correspondence with
(1915–16), 77, 79, 80, 116,
356, 407
Mohammed VI, hosting of
(1922), 136
and Palestine, 93, 96, 107, 136
Pilgrimage Congress (1924), 138
Sultan, pledge of loyalty to
(1908), 74
Syria, tour of (1924), 136
Transjordan, tour of (1924),
96–7, 136
and Treaty of Lausanne (1923),
136
and Treaty of Sèvres (1920), 93
and Treaty of Versailles (1919),
92, 93
and Turkish nationalists, 134, 135
umma, loyalty of, 79
United Kingdom, relations with,
77–82, 93, 95, 107, 413
Hussein, King of Jordan, 224,
231–2
Hussein, Sharif of Makkah, xxi–
xxii, xxiv, 12, 23
Hussein, Taha, 148
Huyette, Summer Scott, 113
 INDEX
Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, Mohammad,
19, 99, 134, 284, 288–92, 299,
329–30, 463
Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, ‘Soliman, 291
Ibn Abbas, Abdullah, 102, 103
Ibn al-Samit, ‘Ubada, 37
Ibn Bajad, Sultan, 101
Ibn Khaldun, 59
Ibn Rifada, Hamid, 120, 122, 125
Ibn Saud, Abdulaziz ibn
Abdulrahman, 230–31
bay‘a (1926), 110, 141
Battle of Turaba (1919), 100
Congress of the Islamic World
(1926), 140, 141, 142, 192
correspondence with the Hijazi
people (1924–6), 111–13
Darin Pact (1915), 80, 115, 116,
228, 417, 447
Egypt, relations with, 141
Faisal’s view of, 91
and General Islamic Congress for
the Caliphate (1926), 141
and hajj, 101, 113
Hijaz, conquest of (1924–5),
xxv, xxvi, 6, 18, 20, 76,
97, 101–11, 134, 138, 155,
164–5, 361, 413
and Hijaz Liberation Party, 121,
122–3, 124
Hijazi Nationality Law (1926),
115
Ibn Rifada’s uprising (1932),
120, 122, 125
and Khilafat Movement, 140,
143
and non-Muslims, 134
‘Proclamation of the Sultan
Regarding General Amnesty’
(1925), 112
Riyadh, capture of (1902), 100
Sabala campaign (1929), 135
531
Saudi Arabia, creation of (1932),
123–5
and Second World War (1939–
45), 229
al-Ta‘limat al-Asasiyya (1926),
114, 141
Taif Massacre (1924), 6, 23,
25–6, 101–5, 130, 164, 325,
375
and takfir, 134
Treaty of Jeddah (1927), 129,
165, 228, 447
and ulama, 113–14
United Kingdom, relations with,
26, 29, 79, 80, 91, 93, 101–6,
108, 115–17, 134–5, 229
Ibn Taymiyya, 281, 282, 283, 284,
285, 288, 301–2, 320
Ibn Umayr, Abdullah, 121
Ibn Zayid, Shakir 121
Ibrahim Pasha, Wali of Egypt, 100,
464
Ibrahim, Fouad, 285–6
idarat al-dawla, 47
idealized state, xxvii, 2, 16
idolatry (shirk), 6, 103, 104, 284,
291, 292, 293, 463
Idris, King of Libya, 232
al-Idrisi, al-Hassan, 80, 120, 122
Ihsanoglu, Ekmeleddin, 17
Ihsanullah, Runsi, 104
ijma‘, 43–4, 146, 399
ijtihad, 64, 151, 300
Ikhwan, 5, 29, 97, 100, 101–5,
134, 246, 274, 282, 323, 487,
465
iltizam, 48
imagined communities, 52, 55, 401
Imam, Kamal, 422
iman, 333, 334
Imarah, Muhammad, 148–9, 152
In the Shadows of the Qur’an (Qutb),
316
 INDEX
Inca Empire (1438–1533), 33, 34
India
apartheid challenge (1952),
165–6
British rule, 77, 91, 108, 163,
218, 456, 467
donations to Holy Sites, 72
General Islamic Congress
(1931), 142–3
and General Islamic Congress
for the Caliphate (1926), 140,
141
Independence (1947), 218, 219
Khilafat Movement, 110, 111,
140, 143, 297, 378
and Najd–Hijaz conflict (1924–
5), 108, 109
and Hijaz Liberation Party, 118,
119, 120
and Ibn Saud, 91, 110–12
Indonesia, 65, 140, 141, 171, 188,
210, 222
information and communication
technology (ICT), 327
Innocent III, Pope, 199
Inquisition, 487
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI),
263
International Conference on
Confronting Extremism and
Terrorism (2014), 331–3
International Court of Justice,
155–6, 160, 173, 350
International Institute for
Nationalist and Socialist Studies,
25
International Monetary Fund
(IMF), 359
international treaties, 62–5
internationalization of territories,
190–92
Iqbal, Mohammad, 58
532
Iran, 9, 20, 236–45, 309–22
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
(AIOC), 238–9
Anglo-Soviet invasion (1941),
217, 236–7
anti-Western/American senti-
ment, 242, 256, 317
Aqquyunlu period (1378–1501),
310, 469
and Arab League summit (2010),
365
and Bahrain coup attempt
(1981), 453
constitution (1979), 318
coup (1953), 238–9, 240
and ethnic identity, 53, 60
Freedom Movement, 242, 243
and General Islamic Congress for
the Caliphate (1926), 141
and Gulf Cooperation Council,
253
and hajj, 355
hostage crisis (1979), 245, 281
Ibn Saud, relations with, 110
Iraq–Iran War (1980–8), 244,
252
Islamic Republic Party, 244
Islamic Revolution (1979),
55–6, 58, 60, 207, 241–5,
250, 262, 298, 304, 315–22,
327, 450, 472
and Lebanese Civil War (1975–
90), 228
and Medina, 356
Muharram events (1978), 243
and Muslim Brotherhood, 316,
317, 320, 472
and Najd–Hijaz conflict (1924–
5), 109
as nation-state, 55, 56, 58
and nationalism, 55–6, 59–61
nuclear deal (2015), 9
 INDEX
oil, 238–9, 241
OPEC, foundation of (1960),
250
‘pace of change’, 242, 450
Pahlavi period (1925–79), 217,
236–43, 279, 299, 316, 356,
448
and proxy war, 20, 208, 209,
286, 320
Qajar period (1789–1925), 316
Qatar, relations with, 212
Resurgence Party, 241
Revolutionary Guard, 243, 244,
316
Safavid period (1501–1736), 51,
59, 309–15, 316, 341, 342,
387, 469
Saudi Arabia, relations with, 208,
209, 212, 358–9
SAVAK, 239, 244
Second World War (1939–45),
217, 236–7
secularization, 238, 240, 299
Shi’ism, 20, 51, 55, 59–60,
241–5, 262, 282, 298, 304,
309–22
Soviet Union, relations with,
217, 236–7, 256, 427
Syrian War (2011–), 208
terrorism, funding of, 211
Timurid period (1370–1507),
309
Tudeh Party, 237
United Arab Emirates, relations
with, 247, 452
United Kingdom, relations with,
217, 236–7, 238–9, 356
United States, relations with, 9,
61, 237–40, 245, 256, 258,
262, 279, 356, 473
velayat-e faqih, 55, 60, 242, 244,
315, 317–21, 472
533
White Revolution (1963–78),
238, 299
Iraq, xxvii, 3
Arab Common Market agree-
ment (1964), 363
Arab Cooperation Council,
foundation of (1989), 364
Ba’ath Party, 157, 209, 221–2,
223, 225, 279, 286
British Mandate (1920–32), 109,
121
Civil War (2006–), 9, 208,
210–11
Communist Party, 222
DA’ISH, xxiv, 194, 208, 210–11,
212, 266, 273, 276–8, 280,
323–33, 351, 356, 372
de-Ba’athification (2003–4),
209, 285–6
Federation of Iraq and Jordan
(1958), 224, 247
foreign fighters, 210–11, 324,
461
Gulf War (1990–91), 155–7,
180, 193, 248, 252, 280, 294,
356, 465
and Hijaz Liberation Party, 118,
121
and Ibn Rifada’s uprising (1932),
120
Ibn Saud, relations with, 110
Iran, relations with, 60
Iran–Iraq War (1980–8), 244,
252
Kurds, 285, 442
League of Arab States, founda-
tion of (1945), 248, 364
as nation state, 53
OPEC, foundation of (1960),
250
al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), 276,
327–8
 INDEX
and San Remo Conference
(1920), 94
Second World War (1939–45),
217
Shi’ites, 9, 60, 100, 209, 284,
285–6, 290, 314, 320
Soviet Union, relations with, 256
Sunnis, 9, 209, 276, 285–6, 327
Sykes–Picot Agreement (1916),
3, 12, 80, 82, 87, 90, 116,
163, 277, 279, 280, 282, 356
as terrorist safe haven, 268
tribal allegiance, 386
US-led war (2003–11), 9, 10,
21, 274, 275, 276, 280, 282,
285–6, 294, 323, 327, 356
and Wahhabism, 285
Isfahan, 310, 313, 314, 387
Ishmael, 35, 391
Iskenderun, 365
Islam and the Problem ofWestern
Civilization (Khamenei), 316
Islam wa Usul al-Hukm (Abdel
Raziq), 145
Islamic Conference of Foreign
Ministers (ICFM), 251
Islamic Government (Khomeini), see
Velayat-e Faqih
Islamic Republic Party (IRP), 244
Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), 328
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
(ISIS), see DA’ISH
Islamic statehood, xxiv, xxvii, 2,
14–18, 20
and bay‘a, 37
and consultative councils, 288
evolution of, 47–9
and international relations, 62–7
and Islamists, 282
and Makkah, 36–7
and Medina, 37–41
and nationalism, 56–7
534
objectives, 45–7, 55, 59
and public interest, 54–6
and Quraysh, see under Quraysh
and succession, 42–5
and umma, 41–2, 51, 53, 54–6
Islamic World Conference, 112
Islamophobia, 15, 65, 202, 379,
381, 393, 441, 478
Isma‘il I, Shah of Iran, 59, 309–11,
315
Ismat Bacha, 136
Israel, 9, 23
creation of (1948), 166
and DA’ISH, 331–2
Egypt, relations with, 63, 248,
452
and Gulf Cooperation Council,
253
Munich Olympics terror attack
(1972), 281
and Organisation of Islamic Co-
operation, 252
and right of return, 439
Six Day War (1967), 9, 211, 255,
305
Suez Crisis (1956), 220
Yom Kippur War (1973), 63, 250
istikhlaf, 66
Italy
city-states, 33
Deauville Partnership, 365
fascism, 164
Lateran Treaty (1929), 182, 200
Ottoman Empire, relations with,
341
Somaliland (1890–1941), 166
Second World War (1939–45),
217, 232
South Tyrol, 185, 188
Turkish War of Independence
(1919–21), 235
Izmir, Turkey, 235
 INDEX
Ja‘fari school, 472
Jabal ‘Amil, 309, 311–12, 315,
337, 469
Jabhat al-Nusra, 276
Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, 276
al-Jaf, Hassan Karim, 311, 314–15
Jama‘at-i Islami, 302
James I and VI, King of England,
Scotland and Ireland, 116, 186
Japan, 129, 156, 164, 217, 350,
365, 478
Jeddah
British Agents, 101, 102–3, 107,
108, 117, 123–4
Consultative Council, 112
Eve, burial site of, 391
Hijaz National Party, 105, 106,
107
and Hussein, 80
Islamic Conference of Foreign
jizya, 47, 62, 400
Ministers (ICFM), 251
Jordan, 231–2, 373
King Abdul Aziz University, 271
and Najd–Hijaz conflict (1924–
5), 101, 102–3, 105, 106,
107, 109, 110
Organisation of Islamic Coopera-
tion (OIC), 251, 380
Treaty of Jeddah (1927), 129,
165, 228, 447
Jellinek, Georg, 158
Jemaah Islamiyah, 210
Jerusalem, 12, 142–3, 203, 231,
478
Jews
in Afghanistan, 264
Balfour Declaration (1917),
80–81, 93, 94, 143, 144
Constitution of Medina (622), 2,
4, 38, 39, 40, 62, 397
Holocaust (1941–5), 23
and Muslim Brotherhood, 294
jihad, 207–12, 287, 335–6
535
al-Azhar on, 335–6
DA’ISH, 274–8, 286, 287, 322
definition of, 287
against Entente, 77, 84, 408–9
and Kharijites, 285
against Ottoman Empire, 79
al-Qaida, 207, 265, 269–73
and Revivalist Fundamentalism,
304
Salafi, 264, 282, 284, 285, 287,
294, 322, 326–31, 381, 383
against Soviet Union, 207,
259–63, 264, 280, 356
el-Tayeb’s view on, 286
and United States, 207, 259–63,
269, 280
Wahhabis, 13, 100, 134, 246,
282, 284, 285, 287, 293
al-wala’ wa al-bara’ (loyalty and
disavowal), 294–5, 322
Abdullah I, assassination of
(1951), 231
Arab Common Market agree-
ment (1964), 363
Arab Cooperation Council,
foundation of (1989), 364
Deauville Partnership, 365
Federation of Iraq and Jordan
(1958), 224, 247
foreign fighters, 211
Hashemite standard, presenta-
tion of (2015), 378
High-Level Strategic Coopera-
tion Council initiative (2010),
365
nationhood, 53
refugee crisis (2011–), 275
revivalism, 302
and Siege of Makkah (1979), 246
Six Day War (1967), 9, 211, 255,
305
 INDEX
United States, relations with,
232
see also Transjordan
al-Jundi, Ghassan, 389
jurisprudence (fiqh)
and Caliphate, 16, 144–53, 168
and Grand Mosque, 20
ijtihad, 64, 151, 300
objectives (maqasid), 14, 45–7,
55, 59, 150–52, 379, 389
and silence of the law, 43, 46–7
and solidarity, 64
jus cogens, 192, 350, 479
jus gentium, 11, 88
Justice and Development Party,
307
al-Juwayni, 54, 145, 320, 348
Ka’ba, Makkah, 72, 95, 314, 391
Kadri, Ahmad, 24
Kafka, Franz, 378
al-Karaki, ‘Ali ‘Abd al-‘Ali, 309,
310, 312, 313, 470
Karaosmanoglu, Ali, 132
Karbala, 100, 284, 290, 314
al-Kashani, Muhtashim, 315
Katanga, 434
al-Katib, 134, 288, 291, 292, 463
al-Kawakibi, ‘Abd al-Rahman, 76,
137, 145, 301, 343, 345, 477
Kazimiyyah, 314
Kellogg–Briand Pact (1928), xxvi,
126, 129, 478
Kemalism, 134, 135–7, 234
Kenya, 210, 272
Kersten, Carool, 378
khalifa, 66
Khamenei, Ali, 316, 319
Khan,Yasin, 103
kharaj, 47, 48, 400
Kharijites/Khawarij, 285, 296,
329, 466
536
Khatab, Sayed, 297
al-Khatib, Fuad, 105
al-Khilafa (Rida), 346, 477–8
Khilafat Movement, 110, 111, 140,
143, 297, 378
Khomeini, Ruhollah, 53, 55, 59,
239, 242–5, 298, 315, 317–21,
327, 472
Khouri, Rami, 325
khums tax, 312
King Abdul Aziz University,
Jeddah, 271
Kirdar, Muhammad. J., 327
Kitchener, Herbert, 1st Earl
Kitchener, 77, 406
Kohn, Hans, 102
Korean War (1950–53), 219
Koskenniemi, Martti, 12
Kosovo, 13, 173, 181, 185, 190,
431–2
Kostiner, Joseph, 29
Kramer, Martin, 30
Kufa, 4, 45
kuffar, 103, 104, 134, 298, 304
kufr, 295, 329, 333, 335
Kurdi, Abdulrahman, 66
Kurds Kurdistan, 53, 208, 442
Kuwait, 3, 100, 116, 129, 155–7
British Protectorate (1899–
1961), 116, 129, 156, 279,
356
Deauville Partnership, 365
Fund for Arab Economic Devel-
opment, 363
Gulf Cooperation Council,
foundation of (1981), 252,
363, 371
Gulf War (1990–91), 155–7,
180, 193, 248, 252, 280, 294,
356, 465
oil, 155–6, 250, 363
OPEC, foundation of (1960), 250
 INDEX
and proxy war, 286
Saudi Arabia, relations with, 359
UNSC Resolution 661 (1990),
180
al-Kuwatli, Shukri, 445
land tax, 47, 48
Lansing, Robert, 86, 87, 89, 95
Latakia, Syria, 255
Lateran Treaty (1929), 182, 200
Latin America, 59, 159, 426
Laub, Zachary, 263, 265
Lausanne Conference (1923), 133,
136
Lauterpacht, Hersch, 158, 172,
425
Lauterpacht Centre for
International Law, xxiv
Law of the Vilayets (1864), 405
Law of the Vilayets (1913), 75
Lawrence, Thomas Edward, 24
League of Arab States, 17, 215,
232, 248, 251–2, 363–5, 379,
386, 452
League of Nations, xxv, xxvi, 6,
21, 84–97, 99, 105, 106, 125–7,
163–6, 342, 411
Covenant, 86, 92, 93, 115, 125,
130, 160, 163, 429
and Ibn Saud, 115, 116
Japanese withdrawal (1933), 164
Mandate System, 86–97, 163,
166, 190, 216, 218, 375, 412
Paris Peace Conference (1919),
xxv, 5, 84–93
and Second World War (1939–
45), 217
Stimson Doctrine (1932),
129–30, 350
League of Oriental Nations,
150–52
Leatherdale, Clive, 27, 87, 115
537
Lebanon, 227–8
Beirut barracks bombings
(1983), 281
Civil War (1975–90), 228, 281,
452
foreign fighters, 211
French Mandate (1920–43), 227
High-Level Strategic Coopera-
tion Council initiative (2010),
365
Iran, relations with, 59, 60
Jabal ‘Amil, 59, 309, 311–12,
315, 337, 469
League of Arab States, founda-
tion of (1945), 248, 364
nationhood, 53
Paris Peace Conference (1919),
91
refugee crisis (2011–), 275
Second World War (1939–45),
217
Shi’ites, 281, 309, 311–12, 315,
320
Sykes–Picot Agreement (1916),
87
as terrorist safe haven, 268
United States, relations with,
228
Wahhabis, 6
Lenin, Vladimir, 84, 85, 161–2
‘liberal’ monarchies, 231–3
Libya, 232–3, 249, 255, 256
Arab League summit (2010),
365
Civil War (2011–), 274, 275
Community of Sahel and Saharan
States, foundation (1998), 452
Conference of Maghreb Eco-
nomic Ministers (1964), 249
DA’ISH, 208, 209, 283
Deauville Partnership, 365
Gaddafi government (1969–
 INDEX
2011), 209, 225, 226, 232–3,
256, 448, 452
League of Arab States accession
(1958), 248
and Lebanese Civil War (1975–
90), 228
Maghreb Arab Union, foundation
of (1989), 249, 363, 452
Morocco, relations with, 448
Revolution (2011), 209, 268,
274
Soviet Union, relations with,
255, 256
as terrorist safe haven, 208, 268
tribal allegiance, 386
Lithuania, 162
Lloyd George, David, 126
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 126
Lombards, 34
London bombings (2005), 272
Lorimer, James, 158
Loutfallah, Habib, 92
Lucas, Ivor, 256
al-Luhayyah, 120
Lutfi Bey, Ahmad, 420
Lynch, Allen, 85
Lynch, Marc, 295, 296
Macedonia, 185, 353–4, 355
Maddy-Weitzman, Bruce, 23
Madeira, 184
Madhbahat al-Taif (1924), 6
Madrid bombings (2004), 272
Maghreb Arab Union (MAU), 17,
249, 363, 452
Maghreb, 8
Magna Carta (1215), 41
Mahdi, 246
majallat al-ahkam al-sultaniyya, 395
majlis al-nuwwab, 95
majlis al-shuyukh, 95
Majlisi, Mohamad Taqi, 313, 316
538
Majlisi, Mohammad Baqer, 313
Making of Saudi Arabia,The
(Kostiner), 29
Makkah, xxi–xxii, 3, 4–5, 6, 13,
17, 35, 36–7, 336–7, 354, 372
bay‘a to Mohammad, 37
bombing (1989), 184, 355
bombing (2017), 382
Congress of the Islamic World
(1926), 140, 141, 142, 192
Consultative Council, 112
Dir‘iyya Emirate, capture by
(1803), 100, 289, 290
fire (1997), 184
hajj, see under hajj
Hijaz National Charter (1928),
6, 118–19, 216, 361–2
Hijaz National Party, 105, 153
Hijra (622), 37–8, 39, 389, 398,
399
Hudaybiyya treaty (628), 62, 63,
404
Iranian demonstrations and vio-
lence (1987), 184, 355
Islamic World Conference
(1926), 112
jurisprudential views on Caliph-
ate, 152–3
Ka’ba, 72, 95, 314, 391
Mohammad’s conquest (630), 42
Najd Emirate, capture by (1925),
109
Ottoman emirate, 73–6, 82
Pilgrimage Congress (1924), 138
‘Proclamation of the Sultan
Regarding General Amnesty’
(1925), 112
‘Proclamation of the Ulema’
(1917), 82
Siege (1979), 245–6, 355, 382
Sharif, 23, 73, 76
stampedes, 184, 355, 481
 INDEX
and Taif Massacre (1924), 102
and Treaty of Sèvres (1920), 92
and umma, 41–2
Malaysia, 65, 140
Mali, 160, 218
malik al-bilad al-‘arabiyya, 80
Maliki school, 400
al-Maliki, Hassan Farahan, 283–4
Malta, 365
Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517),
17, 72, 340, 341
al-Manar, 137
Manchester Guardian, 97
Manchester Herald, 81
Manchukuo (1932–45), 129, 156,
164, 217, 350, 478
Mandate System, 86–97, 163, 166,
190, 216, 218, 375, 412
maqasid, 14, 45–7, 55, 59, 150–52,
379, 389
al-Maqdisi, Abu Muhammad, 294,
465
al-Maraghi, Mustafa, 139–40
Mardom, Ummat, Mellat (Khomeini),
59
Marshall, George, 166
Martin, Vanessa, 316, 317
Marxism, 59, 237, 242, 258, 321
al-Mas’ari, Abu Muhammad, 295
maslaha, 43, 64, 320, 400
Mauritania, 363
al-Mawardi, 44, 54
al-Mawdudi, Abul-‘Ala, 296–7,
302, 317, 378
Mawsu’at al-Hijaz al-Siyasi, 23
Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan, 320
McDowall, David, 442
McKale, Donald, 84
McMahon–Hussein correspon-
dence (1915–16), 77, 79, 80,
116, 356, 407
McMahon, Henry, 77, 356, 407
539
McNamara, Robert, 162, 409
Mearsheimer, John, 275
Medina, xxiii, 3, 6, 35, 37–41,
337, 354, 372
Constitution (622), 2, 4, 39–41,
62, 397–8
Consultative Council, 112
Dir‘iyya Emirate, capture by
(1803), 100, 289, 290
Hijra (622), 37–8, 39, 389, 398,
399
Hudaybiyya treaty (628), 62, 63,
404
Iranian interest in, 356
Najd Emirate, capture by (1925),
109
Prophet’s Mosque, 106, 337,
351
Rashidun Caliphate (632–61), 4,
16, 45, 72
Mesopotamian Covenant Society,
91
Meydan-i Shah, Isfahan, 314
Milestones (Qutb), 316
Military Intelligence and the Arab
Revolt (Mohs), 28
millennialism, 313
Mindanao, 188
‘Mirrors for Princes’, 54
modern nation-state, 53
modernization, 216, 235, 238, 240
Mogadishu, battle of (1993), 271
Mohammad, Prophet of Islam, 2,
35–44
bay‘a, 37
on children, killing of, 37, 397
Constitutional Assembly (621),
149
Constitution of Medina (622), 2,
4, 39–41, 62
death (632), 3, 44, 45
Hadiths, 66, 293, 301, 314, 383
 INDEX
Hijra (622), 37–8, 39, 389, 398,
399
Hudaybiyya treaty (628), 62, 63,
404
and khalifa, 66
Makkah, conquest of (630), 42
succession, 42–4, 146–7
and treaties, 62, 63, 403
Mohammed V, King of Morocco,
233
Mohammed VI, Ottoman Sultan,
136
Mohammad ‘Ali, Khedive of Egypt,
6, 100, 412
Mohammad ibn Salman, Crown
Prince of Saudi Arabia, 360, 380,
387
Mohammad ibn Saud, Emir of
Dir‘iyya, 99, 288–9
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of
Iran, 237, 238–40, 241–3, 256,
299, 448
Mohs, Polly, 28, 407
Moldova, 188
Mongol Empire (1206–1368), 285,
301
Monnet, Jean, 363
monopoly on violence, 8, 34
Montesquieu, 394
Montevideo Convention on the
Rights and Duties of States
(1933), 127, 158–9, 172, 193,
412, 426
Morocco, 83, 211, 231, 233, 248,
249, 363, 365, 448
Morris, Christopher, 34
Morsi, Mohamed, 307
Mosaddeq, Mohammad, 238, 240
Mosul, 347
Mottahedeh, Roy, 48
Mount Athos, 195–6, 439
Mount Vernon address (1918),
90–91
540
Moussa, Amr, 365
al-Mu’akha, 39
Mu’tazila school, 334
mubah, 400
Mubarak, Hosni, 365
Muhajirun, 2, 38, 39, 42, 44, 45,
149, 398
Muharram, 243, 313
mujaddid, 246
Mujahideen, 215, 256, 259–63,
265, 269, 271, 279, 281, 455
Munich Agreement (1938), 164
Munich Olympics attack (1972),
281
Munro, Dana, 199
Murasalat al-Mutabadala bayn
al-Sharif al-Husayn ibn ‘Ali wa al-
‘Uthmaniyyin (al-Fawaz), 23
Murassalat al-Tarikhiyya 1914–1918
(al-Musa), 24
murshid, 302
al-Musa, Suliman, 24
mushrikin, 103, 104
music, xvii
Muslim Brotherhood, 132, 146,
281, 282, 305–7, 316, 420
al-Banna, Hassan, 146, 293–4,
316
and DA’ISH, 328, 330
and hakimiyya, 297, 305
and Iran, 316, 317, 320, 472
and Jews, 294
Morsi administration (2012–13),
282, 307
murshids, 302
participatory Islamism, 306
al-Qaradawi,Yusuf, 287–8, 297,
466
Qatar, relations with, 212
Qutb, Sayyid, 146, 281, 293–4,
297, 316, 317, 320, 328, 330,
466, 472
 INDEX
and Revolution (2011), 282, 305 takfir, 134
and wasatiyya, 306 Najd wilayah, 351
Muslim World Assembly, 484 Najran, 403
Mustafawi, M., 296 Napoleon I, Emperor of the
al-Mustansiriyya University, 25 French, 299
Mutahhari, Murtada, 316 Napoleonic Wars (1803–15), 157
Muwafawat fi Usul al-Shari‘a (al- Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 219–27,
Shatibi), 400 229–30, 232
Muwahhid Caliphate (1121–1269), nation states, 51–67
48 National Front, Iran, 238
muwatana, 4 nationalism, 16, 33, 55, 56, 58, 67,
132, 164, 215, 315, 362, 370,
al-Nabhani, Taqi al-Din, 377 401
al-Nadawi, Mohammed Akram, Afghan, 261, 262
291 and Arab Revolt (1916–18),
al-Nadi, F. M., 297
 

74–82
Nahda Party, 307 Ba’athism, 221–2, 223, 225, 232
nahda, 79 and Caliphate, 138, 150, 347,
al-nahidh bi al-bilad al-‘arabiyya, 80 378
Nahj al-Balagha (‘Ali), 316 and Cold War, 255
Najaf, 132, 284, 314, 337
Damascus Protocol (1915), 78–9
Khomeini’s lectures (1970), 55,
and decolonization, 218–40,
315, 317
Najd Emirate (1824–91), 100, 293 279, 356
Najd and Hasa Emirate (1902–21), ethnocentric, 13, 21, 52–3, 78,
100, 412 91–2, 93, 119, 152, 194
Battle of Turaba (1919), 100 and Faisal, 78, 91
Darin Pact (1915), 80, 115, 116, and Gaddafi, 232
228, 417, 447 Hijazi, 6, 19, 105–7, 109, 114,
Riyadh, capture of (1902), 100, 118–23, 124, 216, 361–2,
229 388
takfir, 134 and Hussein of Jordan, 231
Najd Sultanate (1921–6) and Ibn Saud, 118
correspondence with the Hijazi Iranian, 55–6, 59–61, 311, 318,
people (1924–6), 111–13 320–22
and hajj, 101, 113 and jihad, 270
Hijaz, conquest of (1924–5), Nasserism, 219–27, 229–30,
xxv, xxvi, 6, 18, 20, 76, 232
97, 101–11, 134, 138, 155, pan-Arabism, 54, 220, 222–5,
164–5, 413 226, 229–30, 256
Taif Massacre (1924), 6, 23, and revivalism, 299, 302, 303,
25–6, 101–5, 130, 164, 325, 315
375 Syrian, 93

541
 INDEX
Turkish, 57, 74, 97, 133, 134,
135, 137, 139
and Wilson, 85
Nazi Germany (1933–45), 164,
217, 229
nazr, 314
negative space, 202, 209, 214, 259,
262, 267, 268, 269, 278, 279,
280, 323
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 219
neo-medievalism, 7, 21, 22,
188, 207, 269, 282–3, 286–7,
322–31, 350–55
Netherlands, 165, 367, 401
New York Accords (1999), 171,
192
Newman, Andrew, 309, 310, 311,
312
NewYork Times, 277
Niger, 218
Nigeria, 8, 210
Nimeiry, Gaafar, 225
nizam al-hukum, 54
Noah, 391
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM),
219, 222
Norris, George, 85
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
(NATO), 9, 17, 219, 236, 254,
449
North Yemen (1962–1990), 224,
248
Northern Ireland, 185, 354
Numay, Abu, 379
Nuremberg Statute (1945), xxvi
Obama, Barack, 272, 351, 480
‘obedience to the commander’
(wali al-amr), 301, 320
Ochsenwald, William, 27, 73
October War (1973), 63, 250
oil, 8, 21, 62, 213, 217, 259–60,
362
542
Caucasus, 217
crisis (1973), 241, 250
Iraq, 155–6
Iran, 238, 239, 241
Kuwait, 155–6, 363
Libya, 232
OPEC, 249–51
Saudi Arabia, 3, 7, 213, 229,
230, 359, 380
and United States, 21, 259–60
Oman, 8, 252, 359, 363, 371
Omar, Mullah Mohammed, 264,
265, 266, 271
One Belt One Road, 367
open regionalism, 368
Operation Eagle Claw (1980), 281
von Oppenheim, Lassa, 94–5, 157
von Oppenheim, Max, 84
Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation (OIC), 15, 17, 152,
160, 215, 251–2, 366, 379, 380
Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE), 201
Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC),
249–51, 484
Orientalism, 11–12, 24, 57–8,
144–5, 281
al-Otaybi, Juhayman, 246
Othman, Fathi, 422
Ottoman Caliphate/Sultanate
(1299–1924), 4, 72, 269, 277,
340, 341, 344
Abdullah bin Faisal’s request for
assistance (c. 1870), 293, 294
al-Afghani’s proposals, 344
Anglo-Ottoman Convention
(1913), 156
Arab Revolt (1916–18), xxi–
xxiii, xxvii, 4, 5, 12–13,
74–80, 108, 115, 130
 INDEX
Armenian genocide (1914–23),
23
Balkan wars (1912–13), 75
‘Caliph of Islam’, 74
Caliphate, abolition of (1924),
12, 13, 18, 97, 132, 133,
136–53, 234, 280, 301
Caliphate, separation from Sul-
tanate (1922), 97, 133
constitution (1876), 74
despotism, 144, 145
al-Farouqi desertion (1915), 78
feudalism, 48–9
First World War, entry into
(1914), 77
France, relations with, 342
Greek genocide (1913–22), 23
Hijaz, conquest of (1517), 136
Hijaz, status of, 72–3
and Khilafat Movement, 110,
111, 140, 143
and Kuwait, 156
Law of the Vilayets (1864), 405
Law of the Vilayets (1913), 75
and Mohammad ‘Ali’s Egypt
(1805–48), 6, 73, 100, 290,
292, 294, 412
Proclamation of the Ulema of
Mecca (1917), 82
Safavids, relations with, 310,
311, 341, 342
statehood, 35
Sultanate, abolition of (1922),
136, 346
and Treaties of Westphalia
(1648), 10–11
Treaty of Lausanne (1923), 133,
136
Treaty of Sèvres (1920), 92, 93,
134, 136, 234, 412
Turkification, 93
Turkish nationalism, 57, 74, 97,
135, 139
543
Wahhabi War (1811–18), 100,
290, 292, 294, 464
Young Turks, 74, 75, 82, 346
Ottoman Correspondence
Registry, xxiv
Owen, Roger, 223, 226, 231, 362
Oxford University, xxiii, 422
Pahlavi dynasty (1925–79), 217,
236–43, 279, 299, 316, 356
Pakistan
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI),
263
Jama‘at-i Islami, 302
and pan-Arabism, 229
and Siege of Makkah (1979), 246
and Soviet–Afghan War (1979–
89), 257, 259, 260, 261, 262,
455
and Taliban, 263, 264, 266, 267,
323
as terrorist safe haven, 268
United States, relations with,
257, 259, 260, 261, 262, 455
Palatinate, 161
Palau, 429
Palestine, 9, 21
Balfour Declaration (1917),
80–81, 93, 94, 143, 144
British Mandate (1920–48), xxv,
5, 121, 122, 123, 143, 166
General Islamic Congress
(1931), 142–3
and General Islamic Congress for
the Caliphate (1926), 142
and Gulf Cooperation Council,
253
and Hijaz Liberation Party, 118,
121, 123
Hogarth Message (1918), 88,
410
Hussein and, 93, 96, 107
 INDEX
Israel, creation of (1948), 166
League of Arab States, founda-
tion of (1945), 248, 364
and Montevideo requirements,
193
Munich Olympics terror attack
(1972), 281
and Organisation of Islamic Co-
operation, 252
Palestine Liberation Organiza-
tion (PLO), 472
and right of return, 439
statehood, xxv, 53, 165, 193
Sykes–Picot Agreement (1916),
80
and Treaty of Sèvres (1920), 93
and Treaty of Versailles (1919),
93
and United Nations, 165, 203
Palmyra, Syria, 457
pan-Arabism, 54, 220, 222–5, 226,
229–30, 256, 294
see also Arab nationalism
pan-Islamism, 19, 54, 132, 144,
200, 229, 233, 239, 343–4
and Centrism, 331
and DA’ISH, 277
and First World War, 77, 78
General Islamic Congress
(1931), 142–3
General Islamic Congress for the
Caliphate (1926), 138–42
and Hijazi cosmopolitanism, 19
and positive space, 278
and al-Qaida, 270
and Qurayshi Caliphate, 76, 344
and Salafism, 293
and Saudi Arabia, 229, 278, 294
Pankhurst, Reza, 377
Papal States (754–1870), 189, 199,
200
Paris Peace Conference (1919),
xxv, 5, 84–93
544
Paris, Timothy, 28
Paron, 391
participatory Islamists, 306
Pashtuns, 323, 456
Peninsula Shield Force, 253, 372,
486
People’s Democratic Party of
Afghanistan (PDPA), 258–9
Persia, see Iran
Peshawar, Pakistan, 455
Peshmerga, 208
Peterhouse College, Cambridge, 9
Philby, St John, 24
Philippines, 188, 210
Piraeus, Greece, 367
Plato, 317
Poincaré, Raymond, 83
Poland, 162
Political Encyclopedia of The Hijaz, 23
Politico, 210
Politics as aVocation (Weber), 34
politics, 16
polytheism (shirk), 6, 103, 104,
284, 291, 292, 293, 463
Portugal, 171
positive space, 214, 278, 279, 281,
330, 336–7, 357, 381–4, 388
postmodernism, 7, 22, 269,
282–3, 322, 368
Powell, Jonathan, 286
pre-modern states, 33–5
Proclamation of the Ulema of
Mecca (1917), 82
Prophet’s Mosque, Medina, 106,
337, 351
proxy wars, 20, 208, 257, 258,
267, 355
Prussia (1525–1947), 157, 158
public good, 43, 64, 320, 400
Public Record Office, London, 25
al-Qadi, Wedad, 66
 INDEX
al-Qahtani, Mohammed Abdullah,
246
al-Qaida, 7, 20, 21, 207, 210, 212,
216, 256, 262, 267–74, 322–4,
356, 381, 459
Battle of Mogadishu (1993), 271
Bin Laden, killing of (2011), 272
and Caliphate, 269–70, 273,
376, 377
and ‘far enemy’, 304, 326
fatwa on killing of US citizens
(1998), 272
funding, 270
and hakimiyyia, 296
and Holy sites, 20, 281
in Iraq (AQI), 276, 327–8
Jabhat al-Nusra, links with, 276
London bombings (2005), 272
Madrid bombings (2004), 272
and Qatar, 212
and safe havens, 265, 270–71
September 11 attacks (2001), 9,
18, 210, 252, 265, 268, 269,
272, 273, 282, 356, 359
takfir, 475
and Taliban, 265, 268
US East African embassy bomb-
ings (1998), 272
and Wahhabism, 285, 294–5
al-wala’ wa al-bara’ (loyalty and
disavowal), 294–5
World Trade Centre bombing
(1993), 271
al-Qaradawi,Yusuf, 287–8, 297,
466
Qatar, 8–9, 12, 116, 129, 211,
252, 363, 365, 371, 379
Qatif Uprising (1979), 246
qawm, 93
al-Qibla, 25, 96, 420
Qizilbash, 309, 310, 311, 312, 470
Qom, 132, 337
545
Quebec, 168–9, 174, 178, 180,
192, 385, 433
Quigley, John, xxv
Qur’an
and Arabic, 97, 344
and ‘authority of command’, 302
on children, killing of, 37, 397
faith and deeds, separation of,
335
and government, system of, 146
and hakimiyya, 296, 297, 298
and Holy Cities, 82
ijtihad, 64
and international treaties, 62
khalifa, 66
and non-Muslims, 295
and Salafism, 289
and shura, 288
and umma, 54
and Wahhabism, 289
al-Qur’an wa al-Qital (Shaltut), 295
Quraysh, 19, 35–6, 38, 42, 344,
391, 399
and Caliphate, 13, 97, 136–7,
138, 140, 289, 347, 378
Constitution of Medina (622),
2, 39
and Hashemites, 4, 12, 19, 379,
399
and Holy Sites, 73
and Hudaybiyya treaty (628), 62,
63, 404
and Makkah, conquest of (630),
42
Muhajirun, 2, 38, 39, 42, 44, 45,
149
and succession, 3, 44
trade journeys, 35
and umma, leadership of, 4, 12,
76
Qutb, Sayyid, 146, 281, 293–4,
297, 316, 317, 320, 328, 330,
466, 472
 INDEX
al-Quwain, 247
Rabkin, Jeremy, 126
Raic, David, 129
Rajagopal, Balakrishnan, 168
Ramadan Crisis (2017), 8–9, 212,
379
Ras al-Khaimah, 247
al-Rasheed, Madawi, 29
Rashid, Ahmed, 264, 266, 267–8,
457
Rashidun Caliphate (632–61), 3–4,
16, 44–8, 59, 72, 146–8, 295–6,
394–5, 399
Rassas, Mohamad Sayyid, 316, 472
al-Raysuni, Ahmad, 46
Reagan, Ronald, 455
Recognition in International Law
(Lauterpacht), 172
regionalism, 216, 246–54, 363–73
rejector Islamists, 307
Religion, Society and the State in
Arabia (Ochsenwald), 27
remedial secession, 168, 178–81,
192, 194, 435
Rendell, George William, 117
Republic of Macedonia, 353–4,
355
Republic of Rhodesia (1965–79),
172–3, 193, 478
Republic of Vietnam (1955–75),
172
Resurgence Party, 241
revivalism, 298–308, 315–22
Shi’a, 215, 241, 245, 262,
315–22, 386
Sunni, 55, 58–9, 137, 215,
245–6, 262, 297, 298–308,
386, 446
Revivalist Fundamentalism, 302–7
Revolutionary Command Council
(RCC), 221
546
Revolutionary Guard, 243, 244,
316
Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, 236,
237, 316
Rhodesia (1965–79), 172–3, 193,
478
Rida, Rashid, 76, 137, 138, 145,
302, 316, 346–7, 378, 477–8
ridda wars, 45, 399
Rise and Fall of the Hashemite
Kingdom of Arabia, The
(Teitelbaum), 29
Riyadh, 100, 229, 271
Riyadh, Emirate of (1902–21),
100, 412
Battle of Turaba (1919), 100
Darin Pact (1915), 80, 115, 116,
228, 417, 447
Riyadh, capture of (1902), 100,
229
takfir, 134
Riyadh Declaration (2011), 371,
486
Rome, ancient, 33, 41
Rommel, Erwin, 217
Roosevelt, Franklin, 166
Rotterdam, Netherlands, 367
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 16, 394
Royal Bank of Canada, 128
rugs, xxii
Rule of Law, The (Bingham), 10
Rumaila oil fields, 155
Russian Empire (1721–1917), xxv,
7, 81, 341
Russian Federation (1991–), 9, 13,
173, 185, 208, 211, 255, 355,
365
Russian Revolution (1917), 80, 81,
85, 91
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist
Republic (1917–91), 80, 81, 84,
85, 91, 94, 161–2, 427
 INDEX
see also Soviet Union
Ryan, Andrew, 117, 123
Sa’id, Nuri, 420
Sabala campaign (1929), 135
al-Sabban, ‘Abd al-Rauf, 105, 118,
121
sadat, 312
Sadat, Anwar, 225, 452
sadd al-tharay’, 64
Saddam Hussein, 156–7, 225, 275
sadrs, 312
al-Safah, Jamal Pasha, 24
Safavid dynasty (1501–1736), 52,
59, 309–15, 316, 341, 342, 387,
469
sahwa, 55, 306, 315
see also revivalism
Said, Amin, 24
Said, Edward, 11
as-Salafee, Abu Mu’aadh, 294
Salafism, 276, 282, 283–7,
326–31, 465
and DA’ISH, 322, 326–31
al-Durrar al-Saniyya fi al-Ajwiba
al-Najdiyya, 328–30
and Faisal, 293
hakimiyya, 296–7
and Hijaz, rule of, 100
and Ibn Saud, 113, 289
and Ibn Taymiyya, 281, 282, 283,
284, 285, 288, 301–2, 320
and leaders, resistance against,
323
revivalism, 301, 302, 306, 307
al-salafiyya al-jihadiyya, 264,
282, 284, 285, 287, 294, 322,
326–31, 381, 383
shirk, 284, 293
tawhid, 284, 293
and Wahhabism, 283–7, 293,
299, 301, 307, 326–31
547
al-wala’ wa al-bara’ (loyalty and
disavowal), 295
Salama, Hasan, 104
Salman ibn Abdulaziz, King of
Saudi Arabia, 380, 387
Salman the Persian, 469
Samira, 314
San Francisco Treaty (1945), 164,
165
San Remo Conference (1920), 93,
94–5, 96
al-Sanhuri Pasha, Abdalrazzak, 18,
144, 147–8, 150–52, 200, 347,
357, 378, 379
al-Sanusi, Muhammad ibn ‘Ali, 299
Saqifat Bani Sa‘ida, 44
Sarkozy, Nicolas, 364
Saud, House of
Abdulaziz ibn Abdulrahman
(r.1902–53), see under Ibn Saud
Abdullah ibn Abdulaziz (r.
2005–15), 371, 486
Abdullah ibn Faisal (r. 1865–73),
293, 294
Faisal ibn Abdulaziz (r. 1964–
75), 114, 123, 229, 294, 380
Faisal ibn Turki (r. 1834–8,
1843–65), 293
Mohammed ibn Abdulaziz
(Crown Prince, 1964–5), 110
Mohammad ibn Salman (Crown
Prince, 2017–), 360, 380, 387
Mohammad ibn Saud (r. 1726–
65), 99, 288–9
Salman ibn Abdulaziz (r. 2015–),
380, 387
Saud ibn Abdulaziz (r.1803–14),
100
Saud ibn Abdulaziz (r. 1953–64),
123
Saud ibn Faisal (r. 1871, 1873–
5), 293
 INDEX
Saud ibn Faisal (Foreign Minister,
1975–2015), 365
Saudi Arabia, xxvi, xxvii, 3, 6–7,
12, 65, 99, 123–5, 229–31,
357–60, 380
allies, 359
constitutional revolution (2017),
380
and DA’ISH, 21, 283–7, 351,
358
Deauville Partnership, 365
demographics, 357–8
creation of (1932), 123–5, 186
foreign fighters, 211, 461
Gulf Cooperation Council,
foundation of (1981), 252,
363, 371
intervention, 7
Iran, relations with, 208, 209,
212, 358–9
League of Arab States, founda-
tion of (1945), 248, 364
nationhood, 53
and Organisation of Islamic Co-
operation, 251, 380
oil, 3, 7, 213, 229, 230, 359,
380
OPEC, foundation of (1960),
250
and openness, 213
and pan-Arabism, 229–30
and Peninsula Shield Force, 253,
372, 486
population growth, 20
and proxy war, 20, 208, 209,
286
Qatif Uprising (1979), 246
Ramadan Crisis (2017), 8–9,
212, 379
Riyadh Declaration (2011), 371,
486
‘Saudi-ness’, 19–20
548
Second World War (1939–45),
229
Siege of Makkah (1979), 245–6,
355, 382
and Taliban, 264, 267
terrorism, funding of, 211
Trump’s visit (2017), 381
United Arab Emirates, relations
with, 247
United Arab Republic, relations
with, 224, 229
United Kingdom, relations with,
123–5, 134, 229, 356
and United Nations, 165
United States, relations with, 7,
20, 134, 229, 230, 255, 279,
356, 359, 381
Wahhabism, 229, 230, 282,
283–95, 355, 359, 360
SAVAK, 239, 244
Sawaf, Bakr Faiq, 24
al-Sayyid, Radwan, 18, 301, 305,
348, 422
sayyids, 73, 310, 311
Scotland, 116, 175–6, 185, 186,
192, 385
secession, 161, 168–9, 174–6,
178–81, 184, 185, 186, 188,
435
Second World War (1939–45), 166,
217, 229, 232
sectarianism, 3, 9, 19, 192, 209,
212, 213, 285–6
secularization, 235, 238, 240, 282,
299
self-determination, 84–6, 131,
157–203, 376, 389, 409–10
Damascus Protocol (1915), 78–9
external and internal, 85, 151,
168, 174, 177, 179, 180,
181–3, 189, 192
and League of Nations, 84–97,
163–6
 INDEX
Lenin, 84, 85, 161–2
and territorial integrity, 159–61,
167–70, 174, 176–7, 179–81,
183–5, 188, 192–4
trap of, 170–81, 183, 187, 189,
195, 355, 438
and United Nations, 164–82,
429, 430, 431
Wilson, 84–6, 90–91, 92, 161,
162–4
Selim I, Ottoman Sultan, 136
Senzai, Farid, 306
September 11 attacks (2001), 9,
18, 210, 252, 265, 268, 269,
272, 273, 282, 356, 359
Serbia, 353, 439
Seven Pillars ofWisdom, The
(Lawrence), 24
al-Shabaab, 210
al-Shafi‘i, 400, 421
al-Shaibi, Mohammad Saleh, 95
Shaltut, Mahmoud, 295, 465
Shar’ia, 14, 17, 36, 38, 51, 147
and Caliphate, 151, 282, 296,
348
al-hakimiyya, 139, 149, 296–8,
305, 306, 317, 329
Ibn Taymiyya on, 301
ijtihad, 64, 151, 300
and international relations, 62–7
and Islamists, 282
maqasid, 14, 45–7, 55, 59,
150–52, 379, 389
Shi’ism, 310
and silence of the law, 43, 46–7
Shariati, Ali, 60, 242, 315–16, 319,
450
Sharif of Makkah, 23, 73, 393, 405
Sharjah, 247
al-Shatibi, Imam, 46, 399–400
al-Shaykh, House of
‘Abd al-Latif ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman
Al, 293
549
Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Al,
283–4
Sulayman ibn ‘Abdallah Al, 292
Shi’a Islam, 4, 14, 35, 207,
308–22, 373, 469–71
Afghanistan, 320
‘Alids, 311, 316
and General Islamic Congress for
the Caliphate (1926), 138
ghulat, 311, 312
al-hakimiyya, 298, 317
Hidden Imam, 59, 244, 309,
312, 315, 320
Iran, 20, 51, 55, 59–60, 241–5,
262, 282, 298, 304, 309–22
Iraq, 9, 60, 100, 209, 284,
285–6, 314, 320
and Jabal ‘Amil, 59, 309,
311–12, 315, 469
Lebanon, 281, 309, 311–12,
315, 320
and proxy war, 20, 208, 286,
320
Qajar dynasty (1789–1925), 316
Qatif Uprising (1979), 246
Qizilbash, 309, 310, 311, 470
revivalism, 215, 241, 245, 262,
386
Safavid dynasty (1501–1736),
309–15, 316, 341, 342, 387
sectarianism, 9, 10, 20, 208,
209, 276, 285–6, 323
Syria, 320
Twelver Shi’ism, 59, 138,
309–15, 320–21, 379
and Wahhabism, 284
shirk, 6, 103, 104, 284, 291, 292,
293, 463
Shubrah, 104
shura, 112, 114, 288–9, 345
Sidqi, Isma’il, 420
Siege of Makkah (1979), 245–6
 INDEX
Sikhs, 264 Warsaw Pact, 219, 254
silence of law, 43, 46–7 Yemen, relations with, 255, 256,
Silk Road, 367 453
Simms, Brendan, 9 Spain, 9, 57, 157, 164, 185,
Singapore, xxiii, 107, 140, 361 186–7, 233, 272, 401, 437
al-Sira‘ al-Duwali ‘ala al-Sharq al- Stalin, Joseph, 225
Awsat (Zain), 24 Stanley, Trevor, 465
Siraj, Abdullah, 95 state
Sirte, Libya, 365 definition of, 33–5
Six Day War (1967), 9, 211 responsibility, 350
siyasa al-shar‘iyya, 63, 301, 349 statecraft, 2, 13, 16, 20, 22, 29,
Skocpol, Theda, 242, 450 144, 189, 216, 223, 300, 317,
socialism, 220, 221, 222, 223, 226, 376, 401
279 Abu Bakr, 45
Somalia, 8, 210, 217, 271 DA’ISH, 283
Somaliland, 192 and ethnic identity, 53
Somaliland, Italian (1890–1941), and feudalism, 49
166 Ibn Saud, 113
South Africa, 165–6 Iran, 309, 321
South Ossetia, 173, 185 Mohammad, 36, 38–9, 40, 41,
South Tyrol, 185, 188 42
South Yemen (1967–90), 453 nizam al-hukum, 54
sovereignty, 33, 52, 55, 315 Shar’ia, 43, 45–7
and Mandate System, 88–9 Shi’a, 309
Soviet Union (1922–91), 11, 18, Statehood of Palestine, The (Quigley),
20, 219, 226, 230, 254–63, 279 xxv
Afghanistan War (1979–89), 20, Stimson Doctrine (1932), 129–30,
207, 215, 256–63, 271, 279, 350
280, 281, 323, 326–7, 356, Stimson, Henry, 129, 350
454–6 Strang, David, 444
collapse (1991), 262, 279 Sudan, 73, 103, 139–40, 225, 248,
Egypt, relations with, 255, 256, 271, 272, 302
279 Sudetenland, 217
Ethiopia, relations with, 255 Suez Crisis (1956), 219–20
Iran, relations with, 217, 236–7, Sufism, 309, 311, 313
256, 427 Suharto, 222
Iraq, relations with, 256 sui generis, 73, 189, 191
Libya, relations with, 255, 256 Suleiman I, Ottoman Sultan, 10,
and Six Day War (1967), 255 341
Syria, relations with, 255, 256, Sultan Abdulhmaid and the Sharifs
279 of Mecca 1850–1900 (Abu
Tunisia, relations with, 255 Manneh), 24

550
 INDEX
Sultanate, 48
sultat al-istila wa’l-taghallub, 48,
349
Sun of Vergina, 353
Sunna, 62, 64, 82, 110, 146, 288,
297
Sunni Islam, 9, 60, 207
and Caliphate, 76
Kurds, 208
in Iraq, 9, 209, 276, 285–6, 327
in Lebanon, 7
maslaha, 43, 64, 320
and proxy war, 20, 208, 286,
320
revivalism, 55, 58–9, 137, 215,
245–6, 262, 297, 298–308,
386, 446
sectarianism, 10, 208, 209, 276,
285–6, 323
in Syria, 221
takfir, 334
and Wahhabism, 104, 246, 264,
282
wali al-amr, 301, 320
Sweden, 157
Switzerland, 15, 92, 143–4
Sykes–Picot Agreement (1916),
3, 12, 80, 82, 87, 90, 116, 163,
277, 279, 280, 282, 356
Syria, xxvii, 3
Arab Common Market agree-
ment (1964), 363
Ba’ath Party, 221–2, 223, 225,
279
Civil War (2011–), 7, 9, 208,
209, 210–11, 255, 274,
275–8, 280
DA’ISH, xxiv, 194, 208, 210–11,
212, 266, 273, 276–8, 280,
283, 323–33, 351, 356, 372
and Deauville Partnership, 365
foreign fighters, 210–11, 461
551
French Mandate (1923–46), 81,
135, 445
and General Islamic Congress for
the Caliphate (1926), 142
Hatay dispute, 365
High-Level Strategic Coopera-
tion Council initiative (2010),
365
Iran, relations with, 60
Kurds, 208, 442
and Lebanese Civil War (1975–
90), 228
Paris Peace Conference (1919),
91
refugee crisis (2011–), 275
revivalism, 302
Russian Federation, relations
with, 9, 208, 255
and San Remo Conference
(1920), 94
Saudi Arabia, relations with, 7
Second World War (1939–45),
217
Shi’ites, 320
Six Day War (1967), 9, 211, 255,
305
Soviet Union, relations with,
255, 256, 279
Sykes–Picot Agreement (1916),
3, 12, 80, 82, 87, 90, 116,
163, 277, 279, 280, 282, 356
and Treaty of Sèvres (1920), 93
and Treaty of Versailles (1919),
93
United Arab Republic (1958–
61), 224, 229, 247, 255
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),
208
al-Ta‘limat al-Asasiyya (1926), 114
Tabai‘ al-Istibdad (al-Kawakibi),
145, 345
 INDEX
al-Tabari, Abu Ja‘far Muhammad
ibn Jarir, 62, 403
Taft, William, 128, 418
Tahmasp, Shah of Iran, 309, 311
al-Tahtawi, Rifa‘a, 299
Taif
Dir‘iyya Emirate, capture by
(1803), 100
Consultative Council, 112
Najd Sultanate capture and mas-
sacre (1924), 6, 23, 25–6,
101–5, 130, 164, 325, 375
tajdid, 299
Tajiks, 310, 312
takfir, 134, 286, 291, 295, 328–30,
333–5, 328, 329, 333–5, 465,
475
Taliban, 216, 256, 261, 263–6,
267–9, 274, 320, 323, 457
Talibanization, 267–9
Talking to Terrorists (Powell), 286
tamkin, 283, 286
Tanzania, 272
Tartus, Syria, 255
tawaf, 391
al-Taweel, Mohammed, 105
tawhid, 284, 290–91
taxation, 47, 48
el-Tayeb, Ahmed, 286
Taylor, Alan, 256
Teitelbaum, Joshua, 29, 75, 96,
134, 135
territorial integrity, 159–61,
167–70, 174, 176–7, 179–81,
183–5, 188, 192–4
terrorism, 9, 10, 12, 18, 64, 66,
194, 201, 202, 209–10
DA’ISH, 9, 209–10, 272, 277
funding of, 211–12
London bombings (2005), 272
Madrid bombings (2004), 272
Makkah bombing (1989), 184,
355
552
Makkah bombing (2017), 382
Munich Olympics attack (1972),
281
and Organisation of Islamic Co-
operation, 252
al-Qaida, 7, 20, 21, 207, 210,
212, 216, 256, 262, 267–73,
323
safe havens, 265, 268, 269,
270–71, 458
September 11 attacks (2001), 9,
18, 210, 252, 265, 268, 269,
272, 273, 282, 356, 359
and Talibanization, 267–9
US East African embassy bomb-
ings (1998), 272
War on Terror, 12, 18, 65, 272,
459
World Trade Centre bombing
(1993), 271
al-Thani, al-Muhaqqiq, 309, 312,
313
al-Thawra al-Arabiyya al-Kubra
(Said), 24
Thawrat al-‘Arab fi al-Qarn al-‘Ishrin
(Said), 24
Theory of Social and Economic
Organization, The (Weber), 34
‘Theses on the Socialist Revolution
and the Right of Nations to Self-
Determination’ (Lenin), 162
third world, 218
Third World Approaches to
International Law (TWAIL), 11
Thirty Years War (1618–48), 9,
400–401
Thornhill, Chris, 384
Throntveit, Trygve, 85
Timurid Empire (1370–1507), 309
Tinoco Claims Arbitration (1923),
127, 128, 157, 418
Tinoco Granados, Federico, 128
 INDEX
Tito, Josip Broz, 219
Tomuschat, Christian, 173
topography, 52
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),
367
Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP), 366, 484
Transjordan (1921–46), 3, 12, 231
and Hijaz–Najd conflict (1924),
108, 109
and Hijaz Liberation Party, 118,
119, 120, 121, 122
Hussein’s tour (1924), 96–7,
136
League of Arab States, founda-
tion of (1945), 248, 364
literature on Arab Revolt, 23, 25
Transnistria, 185
Treaties of Westphalia (1648),
9–11, 21, 52, 198, 385,
400–401
Treaty of Hudaybiyya (628), 62,
63, 404
Treaty of Jeddah (1927), 129, 165,
228, 447
Treaty of Lausanne (1923), 133,
136
Treaty of Münster (1648), 52, 400
Treaty of Osnabruck (1648), 52,
400
Treaty of Paris (1856), 410
Treaty of Paris (1928), 129
Treaty of San Francisco (1945),
164, 165
Treaty of Sèvres (1920), 92, 93,
94, 134, 136, 234, 412
Treaty of Versailles (1919), xxv, 5,
84–93, 115–16, 126, 234, 411
Troeller, Gary, 29–30, 413
Trofimov,Yaroslav, 246
Trotsky, Leon, 81
Troy, Jodok, 198
553
Trucial States (1820–1971), 116,
129, 228–9, 247
Truman, Harry, 166, 172
Trump, Donald, 212, 366, 381,
478
Trusteeship Council, 166–7, 190,
218, 219
Tudeh Party, 237
Tunisia, 83, 210–11, 223, 248–9,
255, 299, 304, 307, 363, 365,
461
Turaba, battle of (1919), 100
Turkish nationalism, 57, 74, 97,
133, 134, 135, 137, 139
Turkish Republic (1923–), 97,
234–6, 307–8, 449
and Arab League summit (2010),
365
Caliphate, abolition of (1924),
12, 13, 18, 97, 132, 133,
136–53, 234
constitutional referendum
(2017), 308
Cyprus, invasion of (1974), 448
Deauville Partnership, 365
and European Union, 236, 308
foreign fighters, 211
and General Islamic Congress
for the Caliphate (1926), 139,
141
Hatay dispute, 365
High-Level Strategic Coopera-
tion Council initiative (2010),
365
Justice and Development Party,
307–8
Kurds, 208
Lausanne Conference (1923),
133, 136
NATO membership, 236, 254,
449
Qatar, relations with, 212
 INDEX
refugee crisis (2011–), 275
revivalism, 307–8
Second World War (1939–45),
236
secularization, 235–6, 299
and Union for the Mediterranean
(UfM), 364
United States, relations with,
236, 255, 449
War of Independence (1919–
23), 235
Turnour, Edward, 6th Earl
Winterton, 126
Twelve Tables (450–49 BCE), 41
Twelver Shi’ism, 59, 138, 309–15,
320–21, 379
tyranny, 59, 144, 145, 345
U-2 planes, 455
Ukraine, 355
ulama, 43, 132, 282, 299
al-Azhar, 138–9
General Islamic Congress for the
Caliphate (1926), 138–40
Egypt, 138–9, 227
Jabal ‘Amil, 59, 309, 311–12,
315
Kingdom of Hijaz (1916–25),
82, 95, 102
Kingdom of Hijaz and Najd
(1926–32), 113–14
and Nasserism, 227
Pahlavi dynasty (1925–79), 237,
242, 316
‘Proclamation of the Ulema of
Mecca’ (1917), 82
Qajar dynasty (1789–1925), 316
Safavid dynasty (1501–1736),
59, 310, 311, 313, 315, 316
Saudi Arabia, 246, 283
Shi’ite, 59, 310, 311, 313, 315,
316
554
Taif massacre (1924), 102
Wahhabi, 246, 283, 294
‘Umar, Rashidun Caliph, 47, 53,
394
‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, Umayyad
Caliph, 400
Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), 4,
17, 47, 72, 340, 341, 400
Umm al-Qura, 25, 111–13, 114,
124
Umm al-Qura (al-Kawakibi), 145
Umm Zayd, xxi
umma, 11, 14, 46, 51, 53, 54–6,
147, 148, 373, 399
and ahl al-hall wa al-‘aqd, 346
Arabs as centre, 55
in Arab nationalism, 4
consensus of, 44, 111, 147–8,
288, 289
in Constitution of Medina (622),
2, 4, 38, 39, 40, 41–2
and dar al-islam, 56
and hakimiyyia, 296
and international treaties, 63
as nation-state, 56
and Organisation of Islamic Co-
operation, 17, 251
and public interest, 54–6
and Quraysh, 4, 12, 76
and revivalism, 301
Rida on, 347
and self-determination, 131–2
and Shi’ism, 318, 322
and silence of the law, 43, 44, 46
al-Ummah, 121
undeserved wealth, 3, 8
unilateral declarations of indepen-
dence (UDIs), 172–3
Union for the Mediterranean
(UfM), 364
United Arab Emirates (UAE), 8,
229, 247, 252, 255, 264, 359,
363, 365, 371, 452
 INDEX
United Arab Republic (1958–61),
224, 229, 247, 255
United Kingdom, 4–5, 77–82, 341
Afghanistan War (2001–14), 266
‘Ali, relations with, 107–8, 109
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
(AIOC), 238–9
Arab Bureau, xxiv, 28, 81, 87–8,
410
Atlantic Charter (1941), 166
Bahrain Protectorate (1868–
1971), 129
Balfour Declaration (1917),
80–81, 93, 94, 143, 144
Brexit (2016–), 186, 366, 484
Darin Pact (1915), 80, 115, 116,
228, 417, 447
Deauville Partnership, 365
Declaration to the Seven (1918),
81
Durant Line, creation of (1893),
456
East of Suez decision (1968), 247
Edinburgh Agreement (2012),
175–6
Egypt Protectorate (1882–
1952), 118, 120, 121, 122,
123
Faisal, relations with, 114
al-Farouqi desertion (1915), 78
Fashoda incident (1898), 73
foreign fighters, 210
Foreign Office, xxiv, 25–6, 90,
100, 102, 107, 115–17, 121,
124–5, 145
Gallipoli Campaign (1915–16),
84
and General Islamic Congress
(1931), 143
and General Islamic Congress for
the Caliphate (1926), 141
and Gulf Cooperation Council
summit (2016), 373, 487
555
and Hijaz, status of, 125–6
and Hijaz Liberation Party, 119,
121–3
Hijazi delegation (1919), 92
Hogarth Message (1918), 88,
410
Hussein, relations with, 77–82,
93, 95, 107, 413
Ibn Saud, relations with, 26, 29,
79, 80, 91, 93, 101–6, 108,
109, 115–17, 134–5, 413
India, rule of, 77, 91, 108, 163,
218, 219, 456, 467
Iran, relations with, 217, 236–7,
238–9, 356
Iraq Mandate (1920–32), 109,
121–2
Iraq War (2003–11), 9, 10
Kellogg–Briand Pact (1928),
xxvi, 126, 129, 478
Kitchener–Abdullah correspon-
dence (1914), 77
Kuwait Protectorate (1899–
1961), 116, 129, 156, 279,
356
Libya intervention (2011), 275
McMahon–Hussein correspon-
dence (1915–16), 77, 79, 80,
116, 356, 407
Munich Agreement (1938), 164
National Archives, xxiv, 25–6
Northern Ireland, 185, 354
Ottoman Empire, relations with,
156, 341
Palestine Mandate (1920–48),
xxv, 5, 121, 122, 123, 143,
166
Paris Peace Conference (1919),
91, 93
poll tax (1989–90), 186
Qatar Protectorate (1916–71),
116, 129
 INDEX
Rhodesian UDI (1965), 172–3
Saudi Arabia, relations with,
123–5, 134, 229, 356
Scotland, 116, 175–6, 185, 186,
192, 385
Suez Crisis (1956), 220
Sykes–Picot Agreement (1916),
3, 12, 80, 82, 87, 90, 116,
163, 277, 279, 280, 282, 356
and Taif Massacre (1924), 102–4,
375
and terrorism, funding of, 211
Tinoco Claims Arbitration
(1923), 127, 128, 157, 418
Transjordan Mandate (1921–
46), 121, 122, 231
Treaty of Jeddah (1927), 129,
165, 228, 447
Treaty of Sèvres (1920), 92, 93
Treaty of Versailles (1919), 92,
93
Trucial States (1820–1971),
116, 129, 228–9, 247
Turkish War of Independence
(1919–22), 235
and United Nations, 165
Wahhabis, relations with, 30, 97,
102–5, 106, 375
United Nations, 64, 164–82, 218,
219, 343
Arab Human Development Re-
port, 393–4
Charter, xxvi, 156, 160, 165,
166, 167, 429, 431
Declaration on Principles of
International Law (1970),
160, 168, 175, 179, 180, 430,
426, 434
Declaration on the Rights of In-
digenous Peoples (2007), 169
Economic and Social Commis-
sion for Western Asia (ES-
CWA), 362–3
556
Educational, Scientific and Cul-
tural Organisation (UNES-
CO), 178, 181–2
General Assembly, 160, 167–8,
175, 430
and hajj, 355
Interim Administration Mission
in Kosovo (UNMIK), 190
Islam, representation of, 201,
203, 214, 340
League of Arab States, recogni-
tion of (1958), 248
and Libyan Civil War (2011–),
275
and Macedonia dispute, 353, 355
and Maghreb Arab Union, 249
Operation in the Congo
(ONUC), 190
and Organisation of Islamic Co-
operation, 251, 252
‘post-colonial’ test, 177
racial groups, secession of, 178
Resolution 476 on Jerusalem
(1980), 478
Resolution 216 on Rhodesia
(1965), 478
Resolution 661 on Kuwait
(1990), 180
Resolution 1373 on terrorism
(2001), 458
Resolution 1514 on Indepen-
dence to Colonial Countries
(1960), 167–8, 184, 430
Resolution 1541 on self-deter-
mination (1960), 168, 175
Resolution 2625 on Friendly Re-
lations (1970), 160, 168, 175,
179, 180, 426, 430, 434
and Rhodesian UDI (1965), 173,
478
San Francisco Treaty (1945),
164, 165
 INDEX
Security Council, 156, 165, 167,
180
and Suez Crisis (1956), 220
Terrorist Financing Convention
(1999), 211
and territorial integrity, 160
Transitional Administration in
East Timor (UNTAET), 190
Transitional Authority in Cambo-
dia (UNTAC), 190
Trusteeship Council, 166–7,
190, 218, 219, 429
Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (1948), 167
Vienna Declaration (1993), 179
United States
ABC strategy, 261
Afghanistan War (2001–14), 9,
265, 266, 274, 282, 294
and Armenia, 163
Atlantic Charter (1941), 166
and Balfour Declaration (1917),
81
Battle of Mogadishu (1993), 271
Beirut barracks bombings
(1983), 281
Bin Laden’s fatwa (1998), 272
Bin Laden, killing of (2011), 272
Cold War, see under Cold War
DA’ISH, airstrikes against
(2014–), 277
Deauville Partnership, 365
Declaration of Independence
(1776), 161
East African embassy bombings
(1998), 272
Fourteen Points (1918), 84–6,
93, 163, 428
Greater Middle East initiative
(2004), 364
Gulf War (1990–91), 155–7,
180, 193, 248, 252, 280, 294,
356, 465
557
and Hijaz, status of, 125, 126
Iran, relations with, 9, 61,
237–40, 245, 256, 258, 262,
356, 473
Iran hostage crisis (1979), 245,
281
Iraq War (2003–11), 9, 10, 21,
274, 275, 276, 280, 282,
285–6, 294, 323, 327, 356
Israel, relations with, 166
Jordan, relations with, 232
Kellogg–Briand Pact (1928),
xxvi, 126, 129, 478
Lebanon, relations with, 228
Libya intervention (2011), 275
Mount Vernon address (1918),
90–91
neoconservatives, 21
oil crisis (1973), 250
Pakistan, relations with, 257,
259, 260, 261, 262, 455
Paris Peace Conference (1919),
91
Saudi Arabia, relations with, 7,
20, 134, 229, 230, 255, 279,
356, 359, 381
Second World War (1939–45),
341
September 11 attacks (2001), 9,
18, 210, 252, 265, 268, 269,
272, 273, 282, 356, 359
and Soviet–Afghan War (1979–
89), 207, 257, 258–63, 279,
454–6
Stimson Doctrine (1932),
129–30, 350
and Suez Crisis (1956), 219–20
Syrian War (2011–), 208, 276
Taliban, relations with, 265
and terrorism, funding of, 211
and Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP), 367
 INDEX
and Transatlantic Trade and In-
vestment Partnership (TTIP),
366
Truman Doctrine (1947), 172
Trump administration (2017–),
212, 366–7, 381, 478
and Trusteeship Council, 166
Turkey, relations with, 236, 255,
449
United Arab Emirates, relations
with, 255
and Vietnam, 172, 260
War on Terror, 12, 18, 65, 272,
459
World Trade Centre bombing
(1993), 271
universalism, 56, 215
University of Um al-Qurra, 475
‘unregulated world’, 61
Urban II, Pope, 199
Usulis, 313
‘usur al-ard, 47
‘Uthman, Rashidun Caliph, 4, 394
uti possidetis, 48, 400
Vandals, 34
Vatican, 182, 189, 195, 197–202,
214, 340, 440, 441
Velayat-e Faqih: Hokmat-e Islami
(Khomeini), 55, 60, 242, 244,
315, 317–21, 472
Venezuela, 250
Venice, Republic of (697–1797),
157
Verdery, Katherine, 53
Verkaik, Robert, 210
Versailles Peace Conference
(1919), xxv, 5, 84–93
see also Treaty of Versailles
Vichy France (1940–44), 217
Vidmar, Jure, 179–80, 435
Vienna Convention on the Law of
Treaties (1969), 479
558
Vienna Declaration (1993), 179–80
Vietnam, 172, 219, 260
vilayets, 73, 75, 156, 405
Visigoths, 34
vizirs, 312
Wahba, Hafiz, 141
Wahhabis, Wahhabism, xxii, 5, 7,
12, 19, 20, 29, 30, 76, 97, 259,
282–95, 383, 465
and Abdel Raziq, 149
Bolsheviks, comparison with, 91
and burial sites, 6, 103, 104,
284, 290
and Caliphate, 301
Churchill’s view of, 135, 375
and DA’ISH, 274, 276, 283–7
al-Da‘wa al-Najdiyya, 329
Dir‘iyya Emirate (1744–1818),
5, 99–100, 134, 288–90, 292,
294, 323
al-Durrar al-Saniyya fi al-Ajwiba
al-Najdiyya, 291, 328–30
and expansionism, 282
Faisal’s view of, 91
and fitna, 288
and General Islamic Congress for
the Caliphate (1926), 138
and Grand Mosque, 19
and hajj, 101, 113, 290
and hakimiyya, 298, 329, 330
and Hijaz, conquest of (1924–5),
5, 12, 19, 23, 29, 76, 97,
101–11, 117, 134, 137, 164,
413
and Hijaz Liberation Party, 118,
121
jihad, 13, 100, 134, 282, 284,
285, 293
and jurisprudence, 6, 284
and kuffar, 103, 104, 134, 298,
304
 INDEX
and mushrikin, 103, 104
Najd Emirate (1824–91), 293
nawaqid al-islam al-‘ashra, 329
and al-Qaida, 285, 294–5
and radicalisation, 20, 211
Sabala campaign (1929), 135
and Salafism, 283–7, 293, 299,
301, 307, 326–31
and Saudi Arabia, 7, 229, 230,
282–95, 355, 359, 360
and Shi’ism, 284
and shirk, 6, 103, 104, 284, 291,
292, 293
and shura, 288–9
Siege of Makkah (1979), 245–6,
355, 382
state, 287–90
Taif Massacre (1924), 6, 23,
25–6, 101–5, 130, 164, 325
takfir, 134, 286, 291, 328–30
and Taliban, 264, 265
and tawhid, 284, 290
United Kingdom, relations with,
30, 97, 102–5, 106, 375
Wahhabi War (1811–18), 100,
290, 292, 294
al-wala’ wa al-bara’ (loyalty and
disavowal), 290, 292–5, 304
wali al-amr, 301, 320
Zawahiri’s view of, 142
Wahib Bey, 75
al-wala’ wa al-bara’ (loyalty and dis-
avowal), 290, 292–5, 304, 329
wali al-amr, 301, 320
Walt, Stephen, 275, 283
waqfs, 227
War on Terror, 12, 18, 65, 272,
459
Warsaw Pact, 219, 254
wasatiyya, 306
Wathiqa, see Constitution of Medina
al-Wayyil, Abd al-Salam, 326
wazirs, 312
559
Weber, Max, 4, 8, 19, 34, 317,
321, 387
Weber, Steven, 52
Weizmann, Chaim, 143
Weller, Marc, 170–71, 173–4,
177, 180, 189, 192
West Papua, 188
Western Sahara, 170, 192, 249
Westernization, 216, 235, 240,
282, 299, 342
Weston, Mark, 102
Westphalian state, 7–10, 11, 21,
22, 33, 34, 51–3, 55, 56, 215,
315, 376, 385
Westphalian treaties (1648), 9–11,
21, 52, 198, 385, 400–401
Westrate, Bruce, 28, 88
Wheaton, Henry, 33
wilayah, 54
Willis, John, 144
Wilson, Woodrow, 81, 84–6,
90–91, 92, 161, 162, 428
Wingate, Reginald, 140
Winterton, Earl, see Turnour,
Edward
Wood, Graeme, 324
Wood, Michael, 353–4
World Bank, 362
Xi Jinping, 367
Yanbu, 112
Yar, Abbas Khamah, 316
Yemen, 3, 373
Arab Cooperation Council,
foundation of (1989), 364
Civil War (2015–), 7, 9, 208,
209
DA’ISH attacks, 209
and Deauville Partnership, 365
and Gulf Cooperation Council,
253
and Hijaz Liberation Party, 118
 INDEX
North Yemen (1962–1990), 224
Quraysh winter journey, 35
Revolution (2011), 268
Saudi intervention (2015), 7
South Yemen (1967–90), 453
Soviet Union, relations with,
255, 256, 453
as terrorist safe haven, 268
Yom Kippur War (1973), 63, 250
Young Arab Party, 78, 79
Young Turks, 74, 75, 82, 346
youth bulge, 213, 357–8
YPG/J (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel/
Jin), 208
Yugoslavia, 172, 219, 252
560
Zain Nour al-Din Zain, 24
Zaire (1971–97), 434
zakat, 47, 334
zalimun, 298
al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab, 276, 324,
327, 459
al-Zawahiri, Ayman, 273, 285, 460
al-Zawahiri, Muhammad al-
Ahmadi, 142, 421
Zaydis, 138
Zeghal, Malika, 227
Zelin, Aaron, 459
Zia-Ebrahimi, Reza, 402
Zogby, 393
Zubaida, Sami, 57–8, 60, 319