How Muslims Helped Cause the American Revolution

Today’s American political landscape can be quite a confusing and frightening place. The ideas of the Founding Fathers are commonly cited as the foundation of the nation. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are seen as the infallible documents on which American life are based. Freedom, democracy, and liberty are the cornerstones of political and social ideas in the United States.

At the same time, however, the rising tide of Islamophobia is making its presence felt. Politicians support the characterization of Islamic life as incompatible with American society. Media “pundits” decry the supposed influence Muslims are having on destroying the basis of American political and social ideas.

The truly ironic part of this is that Muslims in fact helped formulate the ideas that the United States is based on. While this article will not argue that Islam and Muslims are the only cause of the American Revolution, the impact that Muslims had on the establishment of America is clear and should not be overlooked.

Islamic Philosophy and the Enlightenment

The political and social ideas that caused the American colonists to revolt against the British Empire were formulated in a movement known as the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement that argued that science and reason should be the basis of human society, not blind following of monarchs and church authority. On July 4th, 1776, in Philadelphia, the American revolutionaries signed the Declaration of Independence, a document written by Thomas Jefferson and heavily influenced by the Enlightenment, which made official their break from Great Britain and the establishment of the United States of America.

The Enlightenment was driven by a group of European philosophers and scientists who were going against the prevailing ideas of governance in Europe at the time. Among these thinkers were people such as John Locke, René Descartes, Isaac Newton and Montesquieu.

John Locke

John Locke, an Englishman who lived from 1632 to 1704, promoted some of the most influential ideas of the Enlightenment. He pioneered the idea that humans are naturally good, and are corrupted by society or government to becoming deviant. Locke described this idea in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding as the tabula rasa, a Latin phrase meaning blank slate. The idea was not original to him, however. In fact, Locke directly took the idea from a Muslim philosopher from the 1100s, Ibn Tufail. In Ibn Tufail’s book, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, he describes an identical idea about how humans act as a blank slate, absorbing experiences and information from their surroundings.

John Locke borrowed many of his Enlightenment ideas from the Muslim philosopher, Ibn Tufail

The same idea manifests itself in the life of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him). He stated that “No child is born except on the fitra.” Fitra here can be defined as the natural, pure state of a person. According to Islamic thought, all humans are born in a natural state of purity, with belief in one God, and that as they grow older, they adopt the ideas and beliefs of the people around them, particularly their parents. This is the intellectual forerunner of the tabula rasa that Locke learned from Ibn Tufail.

Through Locke, this concept would influence the political idea that humans should not be constrained by an oppressive and intolerant government. His ideas, which he borrowed from Ibn Tufail, would end up forming a cornerstone of America’s revolutionary ideas that the colonists in America would be much better off if they were not under the oppressive British government. Locke further expanded on the subject by describing something he called the social contract. In this social contract theory, the people must consent to be ruled by a government that in turn agrees to protect the natural rights of its citizens.

This same concept is also seen in 1377 in the Muqaddimah of the great Muslim historian and sociologist, Ibn Khaldun. In it, he states, “The concomitants of good rulership are kindness to, and protection of, one’s subjects. The true meaning of royal authority is realized when a ruler defends his subjects.” Here Ibn Khaldun is explaining one of the main political ideas of the Enlightenment, 300 years before Locke proposes the same argument: that a government must defend, not infringe on, the rights of its citizens. Later, in 1776, the preamble of the Declaration of Independence stated a similar argument: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

John Locke also pioneered the concept of natural rights: the idea that humans all have a set of God-given rights that should not be taken away by any government. In the Declaration of Independence, this is stated as “…they [men] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

While most American and European textbooks promote this as a unique “Western” idea, the truth is that it is far older than John Locke and Thomas Jefferson. Again, in the Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun explains: “Those who infringe upon property commit an injustice. Those who deny people their rights commit an injustice.” He goes on to explain that this leads to the destruction of a state, and cites examples from the life of the Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) where he forbade injustice. The concepts that a Muslim government should not infringe upon rights was very clear in Islamic law and was a well-accepted idea throughout Muslim empires.

Other Philosophers

Other Enlightenment philosophers were heavily influenced by earlier Muslims and Islamic ideas. Without going into great detail, the following are some examples:

Isaac Newton was greatly influenced by Ibn al-Haytham, the Muslim scientist who pioneered the scientific method, optics, and the laws of motion. In Europe, Ibn al-Haytham was well known, as were his ideas about science and philosophy. Isaac Newton borrowed from Ibn al-Haytham the idea that there are natural laws that run the universe (an idea first proposed by Caliph al-Ma’mun as his rationale for establishing the House of Wisdom in Baghdad). Later Enlightenment philosophers used the idea of natural laws to support concepts of natural rights, the government’s role, and economic systems. All of these ideas influenced the Founding Fathers of America who cited them as the basis of the United States.

Montesquieu is usually cited as the first to propose the ideas of separation of government into several branches. During his time in Europe, monarchs held absolute power and shared control of the state with no one. The Muslim world had historically never run in such a way. While caliphs in the Umayyad and Abbasid Empires held most of the power, there also existed the idea of shura, which was a council whose job it was to advise the caliph. In those governments there also existed ministers who carried out tasks under the supervision of the monarch. Perhaps the most important however, were the qadis, or judges, who formed a legal system based on Islamic law and were independent of the ruling caliph. A prime example of how Islamic governments are designed to work through a bureaucracy is Imam al-Mawardi’s Al-Ahkam Al-Sultaniyyah [On the Ordinances of the Government], written in the early 1000s. In it, al-Mawardi explains how the caliph and other government officials are to carry out their roles within their individual spheres, all while staying within the framework of Islamic law.

This system of government was well known in Europe from the Muslim European states in Spain and Sicily, where many European Christians traveled to study under Muslim scholars. Al-Mawardi’s work was translated into Latin and disseminated throughout Europe, where he was known as Alboacen, a Latin corruption of his name.

Coffee

All of the philosophical ideas already mentioned would not have had much effect if it were not for a curious black drink that came out of the Muslim world – coffee.

During the Middle Ages in Europe, the drink of choice was alcohol. In France and other areas that grew grapes, wine was the dominant drink, while beer and ale were popular further north. Drinking water was actually rare, as it was believed that alcoholic beverages were cleaner than water and more filling. The result of this belief was constant drunkenness among the European population.

In Yemen in the middle of the 1400s, a new drink that was made from coffee beans was beginning to become quite popular. The Yemenis were roasting and then boiling coffee beans in water to produce a drink that was rich in caffeine, a stimulant that causes the body to have more energy and the brain to think more clearly. Through the 1400s and 1500s, coffee spread throughout the Muslim world, and coffee shops began to pop up in major cities. These coffee shops became a center of urban society, as people met there to socialize and enjoy the company of others.

A British coffeehouse in the 1700s

By the 1600s, these coffee houses had spread to Europe as well. Although there was initial resistance to drinking a “Muslim drink” in Christian Europe, the beverage caught on. The coffeehouses became a central aspect of the Enlightenment, particularly in France. Whereas previously Europeans had been drinking alcohol regularly, they now met in coffee houses, where they discussed philosophy, government, politics, and other ideas that were the cornerstones of the Enlightenment. French Enlightenment philosophers such as Diderot, Voltaire, and Rousseau were all regular customers at the coffeehouses of Paris.

Were it not for this drink from the Muslim lands, Europe might never have had the Enlightenment, as the philosophers would never have met to discuss ideas, nor had the mental clarity (due to alcohol consumption) to think philosophically.

How Did This All Lead to Revolution?

As previously stated, the American Revolution was a direct effect of the European Enlightenment. The theories of rights, government, and the human self that were the basis of Enlightenment took form in the 1700s at the hands of great minds such as Locke, Newton, and Montesquieu. They, however, borrowed their ideas from earlier Muslim philosophers such as Ibn Tufail, Ibn Sina, and Ibn Khaldun. Were it not for their ideas which were rooted in Islam, the Enlightenment may not have been as insightful, or may not have even happened. Added to this was the effect that coffee had on Europe in giving the philosophers a forum to expand their ideas and learn new ones.

The signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 in Philadelphia

Without the Enlightenment, the American colonists never would have had the intellectual backing they needed to revolt. The ideas of freedom, liberty, and human rights that America is founded on are originally Muslim ideas formulated by Muslim philosophers working with the Quran and Hadith as their basis. While it is not accurate to claim that Muslims single-handedly caused the American Revolution, their contributions and influences cannot be overlooked. Those who claim that Islamic ideas are not compatible with American society must remember that it was those Islamic ideas that helped form American society, freedom, and liberty in the first place.

Buried Treasure In The Desert–The Story of Gold Mine in Mali

Today, Mali is known as one of the poorest countries on earth. Life expectancy and literacy rates are dangerously low. A violent rebellion by the ethnic Tauregs in the North of the country that is threatening to split the country in half has been one of the few things that brought Mali to the news lately. But life in Mali has not always been this negative and depressing. Once, Mali was the shining example of a successful Muslim state. It was the envy of people around the world. It truly was a gold mine in the desert.

Location and Geographical Features :

The region known as Mali is located in the southern extremities of the Sahara Desert. Here there is a transitional region between the arid and barren deserts to the North and the rain forests along the coast to the south. This is known as the Sahel.

Map of Africa showing the trade routes that brought Islam to the region

What Mali lacks in fertile land, it more than made up for with valuable resources. Gold and salt mines have been the epicenter of Mali’s economy for hundreds of years. Trade routes extended north from Mali to the North African coast, where wealthy traders would pay high prices for the gold and salt to send to Europe and Southwest Asia. These trade routes made the Mandinka (the main ethnic group of West Africa) incredibly wealthy.

Islam and Early Mali

Goods were not the only thing traded through these routes. Ideas flowed from north to south. Muslim traders carried Islam with them along with the gold and salt. From the 700s onward, Islam slowly began to take root among the people of the West African Sahel. At first, the response of the non-Muslim states of West Africa was to suppress Islam or at least separate Muslims from the general population. However, as more and more people began to accept Islam, Muslim states started to emerge.

One Muslim state, Mali, was founded by an obscure figure called Sundiata Keita. The epic legend of his life has traveled down throughout the centuries as an oral story, and thus the truth of his story has been distorted over time (in one anecdote, he single-handedly uprooted a fully grown tree, and replanted it in his mother’s yard). What we do know is that he founded the Mali Empire and created a role for the emerging Muslim population of West Africa in the 1230s. He took the title of “Mansa”, the Mandinka word for king.

Mansa Musa and His Hajj

The tenth mansa of Mali was Musa I, who ruled from 1312 to 1377. He came to power when his brother, Mansa Abu Bakr, led an expedition across the Atlantic Ocean to discover the Americas, leaving Musa the throne. Much of what we know about Musa’s reign comes from the epic story of his Hajj, in 1324.

A depiction of Mansa Musa from a European atlas.

As a devout Muslim, Mansa Musa insisted on completing the fifth pillar of Islam, the Hajj to Makkah. The geographic remoteness of Mali made the journey very difficult and impossible for most people, even in today’s world of modern transportation. Nevertheless, in 1324 Musa set out from Mali with an entourage of 60,000 people.

Since his empire was one of the richest in the world, the caravan of travelers must have made quite an impression to everyone they passed. 12,000 servants accompanied him, each wearing valuable silks and carrying a 4 pound bar of gold. 80 camels carried between 50 and 300 pounds of gold dust each, which was given to the poor along the route. Exotic animals and people from all walks of life helped make this journey an epic one that left an impression on all who saw it. Numerous accounts from different regions all attest to the grandeur of this procession.

Mansa Musa made a stop in Egypt on his way to Makkah. While there, he initially refused to meet the Mamluk sultan of Egypt because the tradition was to bow to the sultan. Musa insisted he only bows down to Allah. He made quite an impression on the Mamluk government, as officials noted that he knew the Quran and was very particular about praying on time. Musa was clearly a very devout Muslim.

While in Egypt, Musa’s incredible amount of wealth led to some unintended consequences. He gave out gold gifts to members of the government, the poor, scholars, and many others. Due to the laws of supply and demand, the price of gold in Egypt plummeted, effectively crippling the economy. Even a decade later, during Ibn Battuta’s visit to Cairo, he noted that the economy still hadn’t completely recovered from Mansa Musa’s visit. The effect that Mansa Musa’s visit had on Egypt clearly shows the wealth and importance of the Mali Empire, even when it encountered far-off lands.

Return to Mali

On his way back to his homeland after the Hajj, Mansa Musa insisted on bringing the smartest and most talent Muslims to his kingdom. With his immense wealth, he paid scholars, artists, teachers, architects, and people from all professions to come to Mali and contribute to the growth of Islam there. Great people were brought to Mali from Egypt, Syria, Iraq, al-Andalus, and the Hejaz.

The Sankore Masjid and University in Timbuktu, showing the distinctive architectural style of Mali

The effect this had on Mali was immense. Architecturally, the buildings in Mali began to show a mix of Spanish, Arab, and Persian design. This unique blend of cultures created a distinctly West African style that is still seen in its architecture. The legendary city of Timbuktu was especially blessed by Mansa Musa’s Hajj, with many mosques such as the Sankore Masjid being built by the best architects in the world. Mansa Musa even paid the Andalusian architect Ibn Ishaq 200 kilograms of gold to build the Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu. Being able to pay for the best architects, scholars, and teachers made Mali, and Timbuktu in general a center of Islamic knowledge

WORLD RICHEST PERSON:MANSA MUSA:

1. 'King Mansa Musa of Mali named richest person of all time - NY Daily News. Celebrity Net Worth estimates the 14th-century king amassed $400 billion during his West African reign.'
2. (NEWYORK DAILY NEWS:Thursday, October 18, 2012)
3. 
   

.A Center of Knowledge:

The most significant impact Musa’s Hajj had on Mali was its subsequent growth as a center of knowledge. With the best scholars from all over the Muslim world, Mali developed one of the richest educational traditions of the world at that time. Libraries were all over cities such as Gao and Timbuktu. Public and private collections had thousands of books on topics from Islamic fiqh, to astronomy, to language, to history. Great universities attracted talented students from all over Africa to come study in this center of knowledge.

This tradition of knowledge lasts until today in Mali. Families still hold on to private library collections that number in the hundreds of books, many of them hundreds of years old. The people of Mali are fiercely protective of their knowledge that has been passed down from the time of Mansa Musa, making it very difficult for outsiders to access these great libraries.

Manuscript from Timbuktu about astronomy and mathematics

These manuscripts today are threatened by the desertification of the Sahel, where the environment threatens to turn these great books into dust. Political problems in West Africa also threaten to destroy the remaining manuscripts. Efforts are underway to preserve these great libraries by digitizing them. The Timbuktu Educational Foundation is leading efforts to scan individual pages before they are lost to history. You can find (and read) many of these manuscripts online.

As Mali became a center of knowledge in West Africa, Islam ingrained itself deeply in the lives of it’s people. It was common for “everyday people” to be very well educated in religious and and secular matters. The effects of this knowledge on society is seen in Ibn Battuta’s trip to Mali in the 1350s, when he remarked that if a man wanted to have a seat in the masjid during the Friday prayer, he would have to send his son hours early to reserve a spot for him, as the masjids would be filled to the brim early in the morning.

In The END

The importance of Mali and its contributions to the world cannot be overstated. In it’s history, it was one of the centers of Islamic knowledge and wealth. It’s importance to the world decreased throughout the 16th-18th centuries until it was colonized by the French in the 1800s. This history is not lost forever, however. It lives on in the continuing experience of West Africa’s Muslims, and the legacy it left on the rest of the world.

The Importance of Studying History According to Ibn Khaldun

The following is a translation from the opening pages Ibn Khaldun’s book of world history, Tarikh ibn Khaldun, written in 1377 in North Africa.

Ibn Khaldun was a scholar of history, economics, sociology, and historiography. His summary of history and particularly its introduction, the Muqaddimah,  is seen by many as the basis for modern historical philosophy.

“Know that the subject of history is a noble science that can be very beneficial only if it gives us a proper understanding of:

1- Previous nations’s morals and character

2- The stories of the Prophets

3- Government and politics

For whoever embarks on the study of history, they will end up in a beneficial imitation of the mindset of previous peoples in the subjects of religion and worldly matters.

This subject is dependent on studying numerous sources, understanding diverse subjects, having the best insight and analysis, and being able to verify the truth of sources as they can deviate and be filled with mistakes. Historical research must not be dependent on bare copying of all reports. It should instead be based on an understanding of local customs, politics, the nature of civilization, and the local conditions of where humans live. You must also be able to compare primary and secondary sources, as they can help you differentiate between the truth and falsehood, helping derive conclusions that are believable and honest.”

The Mongol Invasion and the Destruction of Baghdad

The 1200s started out looking good for the Islamic world. The Crusaders had been defeated and Jerusalem liberated in 1187, the Ismaili Fatimids had finally been removed from harassing the Muslim world in the mid-1100s, and a powerful Khwarazmian Empire had emerged in Persia. However, all that would soon turn around when the ruthless Mongols would make their way into Southwest Asia. The destruction and devastation they left in their path has scarcely been seen anywhere else in history.

Who Are The Mongols?

The Mongols were a tribe of nomads from Central/North Asia. They lived on the steppe of that region, relying on a nomadic lifestyle of constant movement as a way of life. They were forever dependent on and attached to their horses, which was their main mode of transportation. Religiously, they were polytheistic animists. They never established a large, organized empire, and instead stayed as a loose coalition of tribes north of China.

Throughout history, they were usually at war with their neighbors. China to the south in fact built the Great Wall of China during the reign of Emperor Shi Huang (247-221 BC) as a means to keep the Mongols and others away from their villages. The Mongols also feuded with other tribal groups in Central Asia such as Turkic tribes and the Tatars.

Genghis Khan

Mongolian (and world) history changed forever during the rule of Genghis Khan. He was a tribal chief for the Mongols from 1206-1227. During his reign, he managed to unite the many Mongol tribes along with numerous Turkic tribes as well. With a large, unified group, he set about conquering any and all land the Mongol horsemen could reach.

He conquered most of Northern China in the 1210s. In doing so, he destroyed the Xia and Jin dynasties, as well as conquered Beijing. He also managed to conquer most of the Turkic tribes of Central Asia, leading all the way into Persia. This led him to send armies into Eastern Europe as well, attacking Russian lands and even the borders of Central Europe’s German states.

By the 1220s, Genghis Khan’s armies had ravaged much of Asia and even Europe

More important than what Genghis Khan conquered was how he conquered. He deliberately used terror as a weapon of war. If a city he was besieging gave up without a fight, its people would usually be spared but would have to go under Mongol control. If the city fought against the Mongols, everyone, including civilians, would be massacred. This reign of terror is a large part of why he was such a successful conqueror. People were more willing to give up than to suffer massacres at his hand. For example, when he besieged the city of Herat, in present-day Afghanistan, he killed over 1,600,000 people.

The Invasion of the Muslim World

Besides some raids and massacres on the borderlands of Islam, Genghis Khan did not invade far into the Muslim world. Under his successor, Ogedei, the Muslim world continued to be spared Mongol wrath. However, in 1255 that peace would end. The Great Khan, Mongke, put his brother Hulagu Khan in charge of an army whose goals were to conquer Persia, Syria, and Egypt, as well as to destroy the Abbasid Caliphate. The campaign’s goal appears to be a complete destruction of Islam. Hulagu himself even had a very deep hatred for everything attached to Islam. Much of this came from his Buddhist and Christian advisors who influenced his policies.

The Muslim world at this time was in no position to resist the Mongol attacks. The Abbasid Caliphate was nothing but a shell of its former self, having no power outside of Baghdad. Most of Persia was disunited as the Khwarazmian Empire had mostly deteriorated by then. The Ayyubid state established by Salah al-Din was only in control of small parts of Iraq and Syria. In Egypt, a recent revolution had overthrown Salah al-Din’s descendants and brought to power the new Mamluk Sultanate. With his giant army of hundreds of thousands, Hulagu did not encounter much resistance.

The Destruction of Baghdad

Baghdad had been established in 762 by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur. Throughout its history, it had been the capital of the Muslims, as well as the world in general. The libraries of Baghdad were unrivaled. The House of Wisdom, established soon after the city was built, was a magnet for the most intelligent scientists, thinkers, mathematicians, and linguists of the world. The caliphs were patrons of literature, science, and the arts.

Although by the mid-1200s much of the glamour and importance of Baghdad was gone. The caliphs were figureheads more interested in worldly pleasures than serving God through serving the people. The Abbasid army was effectively non-existent, and only served as bodyguards of the caliph. And the scientific achievements of the Muslim world were now centered in places such as Cairo, Muslim Spain, and India.

The Mongol army besieging Baghdad

It was at this historic and landmark city that the Mongols arrived in 1258. Their army, estimated at over 150,000 soldiers, stood before the city that was just a shadow of the great capital of the Muslim world of the 800s. The siege began in mid-January and only lasted two weeks. On February 13th, 1258, the Mongols entered the city of the caliphs.

A full week of pillage and destruction commenced. The Mongols showed no discretion, destroying mosques, hospitals, libraries, and palaces. The books from Baghdad’s libraries were thrown into the Tigris River in such quantities that the river ran black with the ink from the books. The world will never truly know the extent of what knowledge was lost forever when those books were thrown into the river or burned.

More important than the books, however, was the loss of life. It is estimated that between 200,000 and 1,000,000 people were butchered in that one week of destruction. Baghdad was left completely depopulated and uninhabitable. It would take centuries for Baghdad to regain any sort of prominence as an important city.

Defeat and Aftermath

After Baghdad, the Mongols continued on westward. They conquered Syria from the Ayyubids, with help from the Armenians and neutrality from the Crusaders. In Palestine they reached the extent of their conquests. The new Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, under the leadership of Baibars defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260. This prevented a Mongol invasion of the Holy Lands of Makkah, Madinah, and Jerusalem. This also ensured the safety of the only remaining powerful Muslim empire of the time, the Mamluks.

Despite ultimately being unsuccessful in their attempt to destroy Islam, the Mongols left a deep political, economic, and military scar in the heart of the Muslim world. Entire regions were depopulated. Irrigation canals, fields of crops, and economic infrastructure were destroyed beyond repair. The political institutions, such as the caliphate, that held the Muslim world together for centuries were simply abolished.

The empire established by Hulagu stretched over most of Muslim Southwest Asia

The Mongol Il-Khanate established by Hulagu’s descendants would rule over Persia, Iraq, and Anatolia for over 100 years. Over decades and centuries, the Mongols in Southwest Asia slowly converted to Islam and became absorbed in a Persian/Turkish culture. But there is no denying the immense negative effect the Mongols had on the Muslim world in the 1200s.

The Mongol invasion is one of the most demoralizing times of Islamic history. The death and destruction of the 1200s has not yet been seen again in the Muslim world. While most articles on this website illustrate the great achievements of Islamic history, it is similarly important to be aware of the negatives, particularly what causes them to occur. The Muslim world was largely unable to repel the Mongol invasion due to disunity and weak political and military institutions. Throughout Islamic history, disunity has always led to invasion and defeat, while unity has led to great Islamic empires that benefited the entire world.

HISTORY OF MASJID UL AQSA :

   When Prophet Muhammad ﷺ received the command from ALLAH to lead the Muslim community in five daily prayers, their prayers were directed towards the holy city of Jerusalem. For Muslims, the city of Jerusalem is an important site. As the home of numerous prophets of Islam such as Dawud (David), Sulayman (Solomon), and ‘Isa (Jesus), the city was a symbol of Islam’s past prophets. When Prophet Muhammad ﷺ made the miraculous Night Journey from Makkah to Jerusalem and the Ascent into Heaven that night (known as the Isra’ wal-Mi’raj), it acquired an added importance as the place where the Prophet ﷺ led all the earlier prophets in prayer and then ascended to Heaven.

For Muslims, however, Jerusalem would remain a far-off symbol during the life of the Prophet ﷺ and the years immediately after his death. As Muslims came to control Iraq and then Syria in the 630s, however, Jerusalem would become a Muslim city, and the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem would become one of the most important pieces of land in the Muslim empire. Throughout the complex and war-torn history of this city, the Mosque has been a center-piece of the struggle for Jerusalem. With Muslims, Christians, and Jews all considering the land under the Mosque as especially holy, the importance of understanding the history of this land is of utmost importance.

Part 1 of this article will look at the history of the Mosque before the arrival of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and the early Islamic period until the coming of the Crusaders in 1099. Part 2 will describe the al-Aqsa Mosque’s history from the Crusades to the modern day.

Before and After Prophet Muhammad ﷺ

For Muslims, Islam was not a new religion in the 600s when Prophet Muhammad ﷺ began preaching in Makkah. Instead, it is seen as a continuation and capstone of the traditions of earlier prophets that are revered by all three monotheistic faiths. The message of Muhammad ﷺ only continues and perfects the messages of Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), and ‘Isa, which had been corrupted over time. Thus, for Muslims, the Temple of Solomon that was built Jerusalem’s Temple Mount in ancient times was in fact part of their own religious history.

The Haram al-Sharif, with the Dome of the Rock in the center of the picture and the al-Aqsa Mosque on the left

With this mindset, when Muslims conquered the city of Jerusalem in 637 during the caliphate of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, they sought to resurrect Jerusalem as a place of worship. The ancient temple of Jerusalem had been rebuilt numerous times, most recently by Herod around 20 BCE. By 70 CE, however, the Romans destroyed the temple after a Jewish revolt in Palestine. Jews were forbidden from entering the city and Judaism all but died in Jerusalem.

The area where the temple stood remained as a wasteland for the next few hundred years. The Romans used the area as a garbage dump, so when ‘Umar entered the city and went to see where his religious forefathers such as Dawud and Sulayman had worshiped (which was also the place where Muhammad ﷺ had worshiped during the Isra’ wal-Mi’raj)  he found a the area filthy and unusable as a mosque. Nevertheless, he decided to clean the area and built the al-Aqsa Mosque. As was his custom, he worked alongside average Muslims in cleaning and purifying the area. They erected a basic mosque that could fit about 3000 people at the southern end of the Temple Mount, now known by the Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary. A contemporary Christian pilgrim described the mosque as a large wooden structure built upon earlier ruins.

For the Muslims, they did not see this as trampling on the holy sites of other religions. Since the same prophets that are mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible are accepted as Muslim prophets, the new mosque was seen as a continuation of those earlier places of worship. This went in line with one of the central themes of Islam – that it was the perfection of earlier monotheistic faiths.

The Haram al-Sharif

For decades, this simple structure built by ‘Umar remained the main building on the Haram. In 690, however, the caliph ‘Abd al-Malik of the Umayyad Dynasty rebuilt the al-Aqsa Mosque, much larger and more stable than the mosque that ‘Umar had built. The basic plan of the current mosque dates from this reconstruction. ‘Abd al-Malik’s real architectural achievement  however, was what was constructed about 200 meters to the north.

The Dome of the Rock, built by ‘Abd al-Malik in 690

Above the rock from which some Muslims believed Prophet Muhammad ﷺ ascended to Heaven from, ‘Abd al-Malik built the magnificent Dome of the Rock. As part of the al-Aqsa Mosque, it was not a separate house of worship, nor was it meant to compete with the al-Aqsa Mosque, but was meant as a complement to it. Using the architectural traditions and mosaics that the Umayyads had learned from the Byzantines who ruled the area before them, the Dome immediately became one of the focal points of Islamic architecture in the 600s.

The Dome of the Rock was built at the very summit of the Haram complex, and is thus one of the most impressive and notable buildings of the city. It has an octagonal footprint, from which rises a 20 meter dome that was originally covered in lead sheets. Calligraphy adorned both the inside and outside of the building, with some of the oldest existing Quranic inscriptions being inside the dome of the building. Given the magnificence of the building, some modern historians have argued that ‘Abd al-Malik intended the building to be a rival to the Ka’bah in Makkah. Had he intended to do so, Muslim scholars of the time would have no doubt expressed outrage and recorded his blasphemous intentions in books written during that time. However, there exists no contemporary account of him having such an intention, and the earliest mention of this idea was written 200 years later, by someone with a strong anti-Umayyad bias.

After the fall of the Umayyads in 750, Jerusalem came under the control of the ‘Abbasid Dynasty. The new ‘Abbasid caliphs had their capital in the Iraqi city of Baghdad, and did not put as much emphasis on Jerusalem as the Umayyads had. As such, the Haram did not receive the attention and money it had during the Umayyad period. Nevertheless, despite the neglect it received from the caliphs, Jerusalem continued to be an important place of pilgrimage, and the al-Aqsa Mosque itself remained as the center of Islamic life in the city from the 600s through the 900s, despite many earthquakes during this period which required numerous renovations.

Decline Under the Fatimids

Jerusalem and the Haram al-Sharif began a tumultuous few centuries in the late 900s. The Fatimid Empire, which was based in Egypt, took control of Jerusalem in 970, after defeating ‘Abbasid troops in nearby Ramla. The Fatimids belonged to the Ismaili sect of Shi’ism, which many Islamic scholars historically have classified as outside of the fold of Islam itself. Periods of Fatimid rule had catastrophic repercussions for the al-Aqsa Mosque.

The interior of the Aqsa Mosque. The area near the mihrab (distant) dates to the Umayyad construction, while the pillars date to the Fatimid period.

Since the beginning of Muslim rule over Jerusalem, the mosque and the Haram in general had been centers of Islamic knowledge. Scholars regularly established schools in the mosque to educate students from the basics of Arabic grammar to advanced topics in Islamic law and theology. During the Fatimid period, these educational endeavors were curtailed by the Fatimid governors and replaced with official Shi’a establishments. The geographer al-Muqaddasi wrote in 985 that in Jerusalem, “jurists remain unvisited, pious men have no renown, and the schools are unattended for there are no lectures.”1 He goes on to lament the lack of Islamic education in the city that had been frequented by scholars such as al-Shafi’i in the past.

The worst period of Fatimid rule ended up being the reign of al-Hakim, which began in 996. He went far beyond previous Fatimid rulers in his oppression of orthodox Islam. He declared himself divine, demanding that his name replace the name of God in Friday sermons, outlawed the Muslim fast of Ramadan, and prevented Muslims from going to Makkah for pilgrimage. By the end of his rule in 1021, the city of Jerusalem had all but lost its status as a center of Islamic scholarship. Beyond that, he also oppressed Christians and Jews in Jerusalem, and destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in direct conflict with Islamic law and the promises of ‘Umar in 637.

After the disastrous reign of al-Hakim came some more moderate Fatimid leaders, who were more accommodating the mosque itself and its Islamic history. In the 1030s, after a disastrous earthquake, the al-Aqsa Mosque was renovated by the Fatimids. The resulting structure had a central nave and 7 grand arches on its facade that supported the massive roof. This was down from the massive 14 arches that were originally built by the Umayyads. Today’s mosque is more or less unchanged from the Fatimid construction.

The facade of the Aqsa Mosque

In 1073, Jerusalem was conquered by the Seljuk Turks, who were recent converts to mainstream Sunni Islam from Central Asia. From an Islamic perspective, al-Aqsa was now back in the capable hands of a powerful Sunni state, which brought back Islamic scholarship to the city. Schools were established in the Haram area teaching the Shafi’i and Hanafi schools of Islamic law, and intellectual life in the city began to flourish again. Scholars began to emigrate to the city to learn as well as to teach from across the Muslim world. Notably, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali moved to the city in 1095. He lived in the Haram along the eastern wall of the city, and spent the next few years in prayer and seclusion in the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque. During this time, he wrote the incredibly influential The Revival of the Religious Sciences, which revolutionized the way Muslims approached topics such as spirituality, philosophy, and Sufism.

Crusaders

In 1095, the Byzantine emperor Alexios requested help from Pope Urban II in Rome in his perpetual war against the Seljuk Turks in the Anatolian Peninsula. The Pope’s response was the First Crusade, whose purpose was not to fight the Seljuks, but instead to conquer Jerusalem from the Muslims and establish a Catholic kingdom in the Holy Land.

The Crusaders used the al-Aqsa Mosque as a palace in the 1100s.

Despite being in the heart of the Muslim world, Jerusalem was vulnerable to the Crusaders. Disunity was king in the Middle East among Muslim governors and generals. As the Crusaders pressed on towards Jerusalem, most cities refused to fight the Crusaders and allowed them to continue on their way to the holy city.

In 1099, the Crusaders reached Jerusalem, which had recently been recaptured by the Fatimids from the Seljuks. Because of the back and forth warfare between the Fatimids and the Seljuks, neither side was in a position to defend the city effectively. On July 15th, 1099, the Crusaders managed to fight their way over the walls and into the city.

When the Crusaders entered, one of the most horrific events in the history of the al-Aqsa Mosque was perpetrated. Since the Crusaders made clear that they would be taking no prisoners, a large portion of the Muslim population of the city fled to the mosque and sought safety there. Holy site or not, the Crusaders were determined to be done with every Muslim in the city. They entered the mosque with weapons drawn, determined to kill everyone in the mosque.

The subsequent massacre killed thousands of Muslims in the mosque. For the Crusaders, this was a necessary cleansing of the holy place. Numerous Crusaders wrote braggingly about the massacre. One even wrote about how wonderful of a site it was to see the Crusaders “up to their knees in blood” in the mosque. For the Muslims, this was the worst tragedy to befall the mosque in its history.

An aerial view of the Haram al-Sharif. The Dome of the Rock is in the center of the image and the al-Aqsa Mosque itself is in the foreground with the silver dome.

For the Crusaders, the elimination of Jerusalem’s Muslims allowed them to go about transforming the Haram in their own vision. The first ruler of the new Kingdom of Jerusalem, Godfrey, took up residence in the al-Aqsa Mosque. The interior of the masjid was completely renovated to turn it into a palace with new internal walls, rooms, and gardens. Of course, all signs of its Muslim past were covered up. Calligraphy in the mosque was covered up, prayer rugs discarded, and the mihrab (prayer niche) was walled up with bricks.

As for the Dome of the Rock a few hundred meters to the north, the Crusaders also planned to allocate the building for their own purposes. They were mostly ignorant of the history of the building. Some even believed that it was the original temple built by Solomon [Prophet Suleyman]  in ancient times. In any case, they turned the building into a church known as the Temple of the Lord. Like in the al-Aqsa Mosque, the Islamic calligraphy was covered up and all signs of its Islamic past were erased. The rock under the dome was covered in marble and made into an altar for prayers.

Since Muslims were officially barred from entering the city, there were no congregational prayers in the mosque. There are limited examples of Muslim diplomats that came to Jerusalem who were allowed to pray there individually, but examples of this are few and far between.

Salah al-Din and the Mamluks

In the 1180s, the Kurdish sultan Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi managed to unite the various feuding Muslim states that surrounded Jerusalem. With his united Muslim army, he managed to liberate the city of Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187. Unlike the Crusaders 88 years earlier, Salah al-Din did not allow a massacre of civilians or soldiers. He did however, order the Crusaders out of the city and retook control of the Haram for Muslims.

The minbar of Salah al-Din, before it was destroyed in 1967.

Salah al-Din vowed to clean up the al-Aqsa Mosque within a week of the city’s liberation, in time for the next Friday prayer. Like the second caliph, ‘Umar 550 years before him, Salah al-Din worked with his soldiers and followers to manually clean the mosque. The Crusader structures inside the mosque were torn down. The bathrooms and Crusader furniture were cleaned out of the mosque which was then sprinkled with rosewater by Salah al-Din personally. The mihrab was uncovered as was the Islamic calligraphy that had been covered up by the Crusaders. Salah al-Din even brought along a minbar (pulpit) that was constructed in Damascus in preparation for the liberation of Jerusalem. Besides just the mosque itself, Salah al-Din founded numerous educational institutes that took up residence inside the Haram, as he attempted to bring back the Islamic character of the city.

Despite a new Crusade that was launched in response to the Muslim conquest of the city, Salah al-Din was able to defend the city from Crusader attacks. After his death in 1193, the Ayyubid Dynasty of his descendants continued to rule over Jerusalem and take charge of its defense from Crusader attacks. In the late 1200s and early 1300s, the Ayyubid Dynasty gradually gave way to the new Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, which was ruled by Turkish slave soldiers who would rise to power in Cairo.

During the Mamluk Sultanate, the European zeal for Crusading slowly abated, and Jerusalem was more secure from attack. Thus, the Mamluks were able to place much more emphasis on the construction of Islamic buildings in the city, particularly in and near the Haram.  A new collonaded porch was constructed on the western side of the Haram, bordering the markets of the city. The Dome of the Rock itself was renovated and the numerous fountains and domes were built in the Haram for use by worshipers.

Numerous schools of Islamic law were built on the borders of the Haram. Scholars considered it a special blessing to be in the city, and to be able to study Islam with the al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock within view was especially prized. Muslims from North Africa, Persia, and even as far away as India and China flocked to the mosque to study and worship. The great scholar of the 1300s, Ibn Taymiyyah even wrote a short treatise about the benefits of visiting the al-Aqsa Mosque and the correct etiquette and prayers to practice while there.

The Ottomans

The Dome of the Rock was renovated by Sultan Suleyman in the 1500s. The tiles put in at that time still adorn its exterior.

According to Ibn Khaldun, empires are forever destined to rise and fall every few hundred years. And such was the case for the Mamluks. By the early 1500s, the new mega-power of the Muslim world was the Ottoman Empire, based in the historic city of Istanbul. In 1513, the Ottoman Sultan Selim I went to war against the Mamluks, and in 1516, he appeared outside the walls of Jerusalem with his Ottoman Turkish army and was given the keys to the city peacefully by its local government.

As part of the world’s most powerful empire in the 1500s, Jerusalem experienced a new resurgence. It was made the capital of the sanjak of Jerusalem, an administrative district of the province of Syria. The Ottomans sent governors, soldiers, and administrators to the city to help manage it.

For the mosque, Ottoman control meant a new era of construction and beautification. Selim’s son, Suleyman al-Kanuni, came to power in 1520. During his reign, the Dome of the Rock was completely renovated magnificentely. The exterior of the building was covered in marble, colored tiles, and calligraphy. Verses from the Quran’s 36th chapter (Surat Yasin) adorned the top of the walls which still can be seen today. Suleyman also commissioned a fountain near the main entrance of the al-Aqsa Mosque, which is still used by worshipers to do wudu (ritual purification). For the city itself, Suleyman ordered his head architect, Mimar Sinan, to rebuild the walls around the city, which also survive today.

The British and the Israelis

For centuries under Ottoman rule, Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa Mosque maintained a healthy status quo. While Muslims were in charge of the administration of the city, Jews and Christians were given religious freedom in accordance with Islamic law and the Ottoman millet. That balance was disrupted by the emergence of the Zionist movement in Europe, which sought to turn Jerusalem and the surrounding area into an exclusively Jewish state.

When their requests were denied by Sultan Abdülhamid II in the late 1800s, the Zionists turned to the British in WWI. The Ottomans had entered the war against the British in 1914, and the British rapidly advanced through the Sinai Peninsula and Palestine from 1915 to 1918. In 1917, the British captured the city of Jerusalem. For the first time since the Crusades, the city was in non-Muslim hands. However, unlike the Crusades, a massacre did not follow. The Muslim community of Jerusalem was allowed to continue to control the Haram area, although with British oversight.

A map of the Haram al-Sharif. Click for higher resolution.

For the Zionists, British control over Jerusalem meant increased Jewish immigration from Europe. Hundreds of thousands of Jews emigrated to Palestine, with many of them settling in Jerusalem. By the time the British pulled out of Palestine in 1948, the Zionists were able to establish a state called Israel and in the subsequent war, conquered a majority of Palestine. Half of Jerusalem, including the al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, however, escaped Israeli control. Instead, neighboring Jordan took control of East Jerusalem and the Haram.

On June 7th, 1967, the third day of the Six Day War, the Israeli troops managed to conquer Jerusalem, along with the rest of the West Bank, due to a massive troop withdrawal by the Jordanian government. Israeli troops entered the Haram with relative ease and flew an Israeli flag from the top of the Dome of the Rock. For Muslims, this was an epic catastrophe that marked a turning point in the history of the mosque. Adding to the tension, a large part of the al-Aqsa Mosque was damaged by a fire in 1967 that was started by an Australian extremist who hoped that the mosque’s destruction would pave the way for the second coming of Jesus. Much of the ancient calligraphy was destroyed, along with the minbar of Salah al-Din.

With Israeli occupation of the city, any Muslim entrance into Jerusalem became strictly controlled. Even today, most Muslims not from Jerusalem itself are strictly prohibited from entering Jerusalem and praying in the al-Aqsa Mosque. A Muslim controlled waqf (religious endowment  officially controls the Haram area itself, but entrance into the Haram is managed by Israeli police, who reserve the right to prohibit people from entering.

As it has been throughout it’s long history, the al-Aqsa Mosque is once again the center of Muslim religious life in the city as well as tension with other groups. With Israeli encroachment and the Muslim world’s division and infighting, the future of the al-Aqsa Mosque is once again uncertain.

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The British Divided Up the Arab World

The development of the modern nation states throughout the Arab world is a fascinating and heartbreaking process. 100 years ago, most Arabs were part of the Ottoman Empire/Caliphate, a large multi-ethnic state based in Istanbul. Today, a political map of the Arab world looks like a very complex jigsaw puzzle. A complex and intricate course of events in the 1910s brought about the end of the Ottomans and the rise of these new nations with borders running across the Middle East, diving Muslims from each other. While there are many different factors leading to this, the role that the British played in this was far greater than any other player in the region. Three separate agreements made conflicting promises that the British had to stand by. The result was a political mess that divided up a large part of the Muslim world.

The Outbreak of World War I

In the summer of 1914, war broke out in Europe. A complex system of alliances, a militaristic arms race, colonial ambitions, and general mismanagement at the highest government levels led to this devastating war that would claim the lives of 12 million people from 1914 to 1918. On the “Allied” side stood the empires of Britain, France, and Russia. The “Central” powers consisted of Germany and Austria-Hungary.

The Ottoman Empire in 1914 at the start of the war

At first, the Ottoman Empire decided to remain neutral. They were not nearly as strong as any of the other nations fighting in the war, and were wracked by internal and external threats. The Ottoman sultan/caliph was nothing more than a figurehead at this point, with the last powerful sultan, Abdulhamid II, having been overthrown in 1908 and replaced with a military government led by the “Three Pashas”. They were from the secular Westernized group, the Young Turks. Financially, the Ottomans were in a serious bind, owing huge debts to the European powers that they were not able to pay. After trying to join the Allied side and being rejected, the Ottomans sided with the Central Powers in October of 1914.

The British immediately began to conceive of plans to dissolve the Ottoman Empire and expand their Middle Eastern empire. They had already had control of Egypt since 1888 and India since 1857. The Ottoman Middle East lay right in the middle of these two important colonies, and the British were determined to exterminate it as part of the world war.

The Arab Revolt

One of the British strategies was to turn the Ottoman Empire’s Arab subjects against the government. They found a ready and willing helper in the Hejaz, the western region of the Arabian Peninsula. Sharif Hussein bin Ali, the amir (governor) of Makkah entered into an agreement with the British government to revolt against the Ottomans. His reasons for allying with the foreign British against other Muslims remains uncertain. Possible reasons for his revolt were: disapproval with the Turkish nationalist objectives of the Three Pashas, a personal feud with the Ottoman government, or simply a desire for his own kingdom.

Whatever his reasons were, Sharif Hussein decided to revolt against the Ottoman government in alliance with the British. In return, the British promised to provide money and weapons to the rebels to help them fight the much more organized Ottoman army. Also, the British promised him that after the war, he would be given his own Arab kingdom that would cover the entire Arabian Peninsula, including Syria and Iraq. The letters in which the two sides negotiated and discussed revolt were known as the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, as Sharif Hussein was communicating with the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon.

Arab rebels with the British-designed Flag of the Arab Revolt

In June of 1916 Sharif Hussein led his group of armed Bedouin warriors from the Hejaz in an armed campaign against the Ottomans. Within a few months, the Arab rebels managed to capture numerous cities in the Hejaz (including Jeddah and Makkah) with help from the British army and navy. The British provided support in the form of soldiers, weapons, money, advisors (including the “legendary” Lawrence of Arabia), and a flag. The British in Egypt drew up a flag for the Arabs to use in battle, which was known as the “Flag of the Arab Revolt”. This flag would later become the model for other Arab flags of countries such as Jordan, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, and Kuwait.

As World War One progressed through 1917 and 1918, the Arab rebels managed to capture some major cities from the Ottomans. As the British advanced into Palestine and Iraq, capturing cities such as Jerusalem and Baghdad, the Arabs aided them by capturing Amman and Aqaba. It is important to note that the Arab Revolt did not have the backing of a large majority of the Arab population. It was a minority movement of a couple thousand tribesmen led by a few leaders who sought to increase their own powers. The vast majority of the Arab people stayed away from the conflict and did not support the rebels or the Ottoman government. Sharif Hussein’s plan to create his own Arab kingdom was succeeding so far, if it were not for other promises the British would make.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement

British and French control according to the Sykes-Picot Agreement

Before the Arab Revolt could even begin and before Sharif Hussein could create his Arab kingdom, the British and French had other plans. In the winter of 1915-1916, two diplomats, Sir Mark Sykes of Britain and François Georges-Picot of France secretly met to decide the fate of the post-Ottoman Arab world.

According to what would become known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the British and French agreed to divide up the Arab world between themselves. The British were to take control of what is now Iraq, Kuwait, and Jordan. The French were given modern Syria,Lebanon, and southern Turkey. The status of Palestine was to be determined later, with Zionist ambitions to be taken into account. The zones of control that the British and French were given allowed for some amount of Arab self-rule in some areas, albeit with European control over such Arab kingdoms. In other areas, the British and French were promised total control.

Although it was meant to be a secret agreement for a post-WWI Middle East, the agreement became known publicly in 1917 when the Russian Bolshevik government exposed it. The Sykes-Picot Agreement directly contradicted the promises the British made to Sherif Hussein and caused a considerable amount of tension between the British and Arabs. However, this would not be the last of the conflicting agreements the British would make.

The Balfour Declaration

Another group that wanted a say in the political landscape of the Middle East were the Zionists. Zionism is a political movement that calls for the establishment of a Jewish state in the Holy Land of Palestine. It began in the 1800s as a movement that sought to find a homeland away from Europe for Jews (most of which lived in Germany, Poland, and Russia).

Arthur Balfour and the original Balfour Declaration

Eventually the Zionists decided to pressure the British government during WWI into allowing them to settle in Palestine after the war was over. Within the British government, there were many who were sympathetic to this political movement. One of those was Arthur Balfour, the Foreign Secretary for Britain. On November 2nd, 1917, he sent a letter to Baron Rothschild, a leader in the Zionist community. The letter declared the British government’s official support for the Zionist movement’s goals to establish a Jewish state in Palestine:

“His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

Three Conflicting Agreements

By 1917, the British had made three different agreements with three different groups promising three different political futures for the Arab world. The Arabs insisted they still get their Arab kingdom that was promised to them through Sharif Hussein. The French (and British themselves) expected to divide up that same land among themselves. And the Zionists expected to be given Palestine as promised by Balfour.

In 1918 the war ended with the victory of the Allies and the complete destruction of the Ottoman Empire. Although the Ottomans existed in name until 1922 (and the caliphate existed in name until 1924), all the former Ottoman land was now under European occupation. The war was over, but the Middle East’s future was still in dispute between three different sides.

The mandates that the League of Nations created after WWI

Which side won? None fully got what they wanted. In the aftermath of WWI, the League of Nations (a forerunner to the United Nations) was established. One of its jobs was to divide up the conquered Ottoman lands. It drew up “mandates” for the Arab world. Each mandate was supposed to be ruled by the British or French “until such time as they are able to stand alone.” The League was the one to draw up the borders we see on modern political maps of the Middle East. The borders were drawn without regard for the wishes of the people living there, or along ethnic, geographic, or religious boundaries – they were truly arbitrary. It is important to note that even today, political borders in the Middle East do not indicate different groups of people. The differences between Iraqis, Syrians, Jordanians, etc. were entirely created by the European colonizers as a method of dividing the Arabs against each other. 

Through the mandate system, the British and the French were able to get the control they wanted over the Middle East. For Sharif Hussein, his sons were allowed to rule over these mandates under British “protection”. Prince Faisal was made king of Iraq and Syria and Prince Abdullah was made king of Jordan. In practice, however, the British and French had real authority over these areas.

For the Zionists, they were allowed by the British government to settle in Palestine, although with limitations. The British did not want to anger the Arabs already living in Palestine, so they tried to limit the number of Jews allowed to migrate to Palestine. This angered the Zionists, who looked for illegal ways to immigrate throughout the 1920s-1940s, as well as the Arabs, who saw the immigration as encroachment on land that had been theirs since Salah al-Din liberated it in 1187.

The political mess that Britain created in the aftermath of WWI remains today. The competing agreements and the subsequent countries that were created to disunite Muslims from each other led to political instability throughout the Middle East. The rise of Zionism coupled with the disunity of the Muslims in that region has led to corrupt governments and economic decline for the Middle East as a whole. The divisions that the British instituted in the Muslim world remain strong today, despite being wholly created within the past 100 years.

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