Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
There were also positive interactions during the era of colonialism. European explorers
came to Arabia with a genuine interest in a culture that seemed less tainted by the effete-
ness of Western society. By the mid-20th century, the desire for learning drifted in the op-
posite direction, with many wealthy Muslims studying in Europe. They returned to their
own countries bearing Western ideas, including democracy and individualism.
Books: Islam & the West
Infidels (Andrew Wheatcroft; 2004)
The Crisis of Islam - Holy War and Unholy Terror (Bernard Lewis; 2004)
Pan-Arabism
European control of the Middle East diminished with the Suez Crisis of 1956 - the era in
which Gamal Abdel Nasser became president of Egypt, bringing with him the notion of
pan-Arabism. First appearing in 1915, pan-Arabism was a movement for unification
among the Arab nations of the Middle East. It was a secular and mostly socialist move-
ment with nationalist overtones that opposed any kind of Western influence or interven-
tion in Arab affairs. Unity based on race only fulfilled half the equation and soon unity
based on Islam became a more suggestive prospect.
Movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, led by the radical Sayyid Qutb,
pursued a universal Islamic society through whatever means necessary, including violence
and martyrdom. With this movement, a different dynamic towards the West came into be-
ing. The revolution in Iran in 1979, in which the monarchy was replaced by Muslim cler-
ics, was a further indicator of a new expression of the old alliance of faith and the sword.
Recent Tensions
From a Muslim perspective, the politics of oil has dominated relations between the West
and the Arab world since the 1970s. The wealth that has come from oil has been equally
divisive within the Arab world, giving rise to fundamentalist Islamic elements who per-
ceive the relationship between the West and the Arab world as a threat to traditional
Islamic and Arabic values.
Many Muslims believe that the politics of oil was the prime motivator behind the 2003
invasion of Iraq. When on 16 September 2001, at Camp David, George W Bush used the
term 'crusade' to describe the early days of the so-called War on Terror, many Arabs came
to perceive the war in the region as the continuation of a legacy characterised by the bul-
lying of the weak by the powerful.
