Philip Carl Salzman
Middle East Quarterly
Winter 2008
Conflicts within the Middle East cannot be separated from its peoples' culture. Seventh-century Arab tribal culture influenced Islam and its adherents' attitudes toward non-Muslims. Today, the embodiment of Arab culture and tribalism within Islam impacts everything from family relations, to governance, to conflict. While many diplomats and analysts view the Arab-Israeli dispute and conflicts between Muslim and non-Muslim communities through the prism of political grievance, the roots of such conflicts lie as much in culture and Arab tribalism.
And now for the final part-conclusions
Conclusions
What part does tribal organization and culture play in contemporary Middle Eastern life? Is it possible to say that tribes in the Middle East are primarily of historical interest with little influence in modern Middle Eastern societies, at least outside the state? After all, in the Middle East, there are established state organizations with governments, bureaucracies, police, courts, armies, and political parties. If Middle Eastern states are developed countries with modern institutions, then it might be easy to assume that the influence of tribes and tribal life and culture is minimal or nonexistent. It would then follow that the argument that Middle Eastern culture is imbued with tribal culture and organization and that balanced opposition underlies many aspects of contemporary Middle Eastern life must be heavily discounted or rejected altogether. Middle Eastern societies are not "modern," however, in the sense that European and American societies are. The tribal spirit holds sway. Its influence upon Islam permeates even the most cosmopolitan Arab states even if the tribal influences enshrined in the religion espoused or revealed by Muhammad are, almost fourteen centuries later, forgotten. Indeed, had Islam, whatever its many dimensions and complexities, not incorporated the balanced opposition structure of the tribal society that it sought to overlay, it is doubtful whether it could have been as accepted and successful as it was.
Philip Carl Salzman is the author of Culture and Conflict in the Middle East (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007), on which this excerpt is based.
[1] Fredrick Barth, Nomads of South Persia (Oslo: Oslo University Press, 1961), pp. 98, 104-11.
[2] William Lancaster, The Rwala Bedouin Today (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland, 1997).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Louise Sweet, "Camel Raiding of North Arabian Bedouin: A Mechanism of Ecological Adaption," American Anthropologist, 67 (1965): 1132-50; William Irons, "Livestock Raiding among Pastoralists: An Adaptive Interpretation," Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, 50 (1965): 393-414; Lancaster, The Rwala Bedouin Today, p. 141.
[5] E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1949); Emrys L. Peters, The Bedouin of Cyrenaica: Studies in Personal and Corporate Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
[6] Marshall Sahlins, "The Segmentary Lineage: An Organization of Predatory Expansion," American Anthropologist, 63 (1961): 322-43.
[7] See, for example, Charles Lindholm, The Islamic Middle East, rev. ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002), p. 79.
[8] "Part 3: Muslim Theologians and Jurists on Jihad: Classical Writings," in Andrew Bostom, ed., The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2005), pp. 141-248.
[9] Andrew Bostom, "Part 2: Jihad Conquests and the Imposition of Dhimmitude—A Survey," in Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad, pp. 86-93.
[10] "Part 6: Jihad in the Near East, Europe, and Asia Minor and on the Indian Subcontinent," pp. 383-528, "Part 7: Jihad Slavery," pp. 529-88, "Part 8: Muslim and Non-Muslim Chronicles and Eyewitness Accounts of Jihad Campaigns," pp. 589-674, in Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad; P.M. Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis, eds. The Cambridge History of Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); David Cook, Understanding Jihad (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Efraim Karsh, Islamic Imperialism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006).
[11] Demetrios Constantelos, "Greek Christian and Other Accounts of the Muslim Conquests of the Near East," in Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad, p. 390.
[12] Ibid., p. 393.
[13] Aram Ter-Ghevondian, "The Armenian Rebellion of 703 against the Caliphate," in Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad, p. 412.
[14] C.E. Dufourcq, "The Days of Razzia and Invasion," in Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad, pp. 419-20.
[15] Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002.
[16] David G. Littman and Bat Ye'or, "Protected Peoples under Islam," in Robert Spencer, ed., The Myth of Islamic Tolerance (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2005), p. 93.
[17] The Jerusalem Post, Feb. 24, 1995.
[18] Travels of Ali Bey in Morocco, quoted in Littman and Ye'or, "Protected Peoples under Islam," p. 99.
[19] An 1826 report by Shaler, quoted in Littman and Ye'or, "Protected Peoples under Islam," p. 101.
[20] Littman and Ye'or, "Protected Peoples under Islam," p. 102.
[21] Bat Ye'or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002), pp. 40-1.
[22] Evans-Pritchard, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica, p. 63.
[23] Fouad Ajami, The Dream Palace of the Arabs (New York: Vintage, 1999), p. 155.
[24] Ibid., p. 134.
[25] Pierre Heumann, "An Interview with Al-Jazeera Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Sheikh," World Politics Review, Dec. 7, 2006.
[26] Ajami, The Dream Palace of the Arabs, p. 97.
[27] Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1996), pp. 254-8.
[28] "2007 Subscores," Freedom in the World (Washington, D.C.: Freedom House, 2007), accessed Sept. 28, 2007.
[29] Hassan Arfa, Under Five Shahs (London: John Murray, 1965), p. 253-7.
This item is available on the Middle East Forum website, at http://www.meforum.org/article/1813
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