Arab–Islamic nationalism () is a political and religious ideology that fuses Arab nationalism, which is otherwise generally secular in nature, with Islamism. It is prevalent among some Arab Muslims on the basis of the early Muslim conquests and the accompanying socio-cultural changes across West Asia and North Africa and beyond. It may be closely associated with pan-Arabism, as evidenced by the pan-Arab colours that are derived from the legacy of the caliphates during the spread of Islam: black and white for the Rashidun, Abbasids, and Umayyads; green for Islam; and red for the Hashemites.
Early instances Elements of the ideology emerged after the Muslim conquest of Persia. Many Arab Muslims, including some leaders, held nationalistic tendencies in their approach to the Persians. This continued during the First Fitna in 656, which replaced the Rashidun Caliphate with the Umayyad Caliphate. There were strong tensions between Arabs and Persians. p. 69, 75.
Mistreatment of non-Arabs became a general rule under the Umayyad Caliphate. They were denied any positions in the government under Umayyad rule. Non-Arab Muslims had to pay taxes which were not imposed on Arab Muslims. Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ordered the non-Arabs to speak Arabic, and it was sometimes enforced.Cambridge History of Iran, by Richard Nelson Frye, Abdolhosein Zarrinkoub, et al. Section on The Arab Conquest of Iran and its aftermath. Vol 4, 1975, London, p. 46
After the Second Fitna, the Umayyads launched a campaign of simultaneous Islamization and Arabization.Caliphate: The History of an Idea, Hugh Kennedy, 2016, pp. 85, The Caliphate, Hugh Kennedy, 2016, pp. 85, Hawting, Gerald R. (2000). The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661–750 (Second ed.). London and New York: Routledge. , pp. 62 Arabic became the sole official language of the Umayyad state.Blankinship, Khalid Yahya (1994). The End of the Jihâd State: The Reign of Hishām ibn ʻAbd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. , pp. 94 Umar ibn Abdulaziz introduced some reforms to improve the situation of non-Arab Muslims, also referred to as mawali.Blankinship, Khalid Yahya (1994). The End of the Jihâd State: The Reign of Hishām ibn ʻAbd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. , pp. 31 Since non-Arabs who converted to Islam were no longer required to pay jizya, the Umayyads did not encourage conquered nations to accept Islam, and attempted to limit Islam to Arabs.Hawting, Gerald R. (2000). The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661–750 (Second ed.). London and New York: Routledge. , pp. 77-79
Non-Arab Muslims later joined the Abbasid Revolution, officially ending the Umayyad Caliphate.Cobb, Paul M. (2001). White Banners: Contention in 'Abbasid Syria, 750–880. SUNY Press. , pp. 43 In the Umayyad hierarchy, Arab Muslims were first, followed by Non-Arab Muslims, followed by Dhimmis, followed by slaves.Ochsenwald, William (2004). The Middle East, A History. McGraw Hill. , pp. 55-56 The Umayyads initiated Arabization campaigns in the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, the Maghreb, Iberia, and Central Asia.Lapidus, Ira M. (2014). A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge University Press. , pp. 50Wellhausen, Julius (1927). The Arab Kingdom and Its Fall. Translated by Margaret Graham Weir. Calcutta: University of Calcutta. OCLC 752790641, pp. 438
The Umayyads later became a symbol of Arab nationalism.Gilbert, Victoria J. (May 2013). Syria for the Syrians: the rise of Syrian nationalism, 1970–2013 (PDF) (MA). Northeastern University. . Retrieved 7 May 2022, pp. 21-34, 39-40 The white in pan-Arab colors represents the Umayyads.Hathaway, Jane (2012). A Tale of Two Factions: Myth, Memory, and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen. SUNY Press. , pp. 97
History The ideology officially emerged as an organized ideology towards the end of the Ottoman Empire. Early Arab nationalists believed that the Arabs existed as a nation prior to the rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire, and that the Arabic language and Islam were pillars of the Arab nation.Choueiri, Youssef (2000). Arab Nationalism – A History: Nation and State in the Arab World. pp. 23. Wiley-Blackwell. In the 1860s, Arab nationalist literature in the Mashriq strongly criticised Ottoman Turks for "betraying Islam" and Arabs. They claimed that the Ottomans had deviated from Islam and thus suffered decline. They also criticized the Ottomans adopting certain Western policies, and accused the Ottomans of putting Islam in the bad situation it was in.Khalidi, Rashid (1993). The Origins of Arab Nationalism. pp. 7. Columbia University Press. Arab nationalist rejection of Ottoman authority was first seen in the 1860s, although it was limited since the ideology was small and new. Many Arab scholars viewed the Ottoman claim to the caliphate as an usurpation of Arab-Islamic leadership after the Ottomans captured Cairo from the Mamluks in 1517, abolishing the authority of the Abbasid Caliphate.Marshall G.S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, Vol. 2, pp. 312–313. Arab-Islamic nationalists regularly made similar claims about Turks. Sati' al-Husri, a pan-Arabist and a Muslim, wrote of how non-Arab peoples, especially the Turks, seized control of Islam after its initial Arab leadership. He claimed that the moment Turks converted to Islam, Islam became a tool of Turkish rule rather than Arab civilization.Dawisha, Adeed. Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair. Princeton University Press, 2003. pp. 59–62. Michel Aflaq, despite being Christian, often claimed that the Islam practiced by Turks was incorrect, and that Turks did not understand Islam, using it only as a took of imperialism.Devlin, John F. The Baʿth Party: A History from Its Origins to 1966. Hoover Institution Press, 1976. pp. 24–26. Arab nationalists in the French Mandate of Syria regularly expressed regret over the Arab conquests of Central Asia, claiming that if Turks never converted to Islam, the caliphate would have still existed in Mecca.Antonius, George. The Arab Awakening. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1938. pp. 190–192. Iraqi educational texts during the rule of Saddam Hussein portrayed the Ottoman Turks as foreign imperialists who ruined Arab unity. In several cases, official rhetoric claimed that the Arabs should not have spread Islam to Turks, and that the Turks would later rule over the Arabs with tyranny and ignorance.Batatu, Hanna. The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq. Princeton University Press, 1978. p. 839. Muhammad Jalal Kishk argued that Turkish domination over Islam after the Abbasid decline resulted in the spread of irrational Sufism, absolutism, and cultural stagnation, saying. He also stated that the moment Arabs lost the Islamic leadership, the Turks kept Islam alive by name yet destroyed its meaning.Kishk, Muhammad Jalal. al-Islamiyyun wa al-Qadiyya al-Filastiniyya [The Islamists and the Palestinian Question]. Cairo: 1984. p. 44.
The Association of Algerian Muslim Ulama, founded in 1931, also adhered to the ideology. Its motto was "Islam is our religion, Algeria is our homeland, Arabic is our language". It emphasized on Algeria being a fully Arab and Islamic nation. Its founder, Abdelhamid ibn Badis, stated that the three main components of the Algerian national character consisted of Islam, Arabism, and nationalism.
Amin al-Husseini was another advocate of the ideology.Choueiri, Youssef (2000). Arab Nationalism – A History: Nation and State in the Arab World. pp. 98. Wiley-Blackwell. Rashid Rida called for a restored Arab-led caliphate, believing that only the Arabs could faithfully lead the ummah.Commins, David. Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria. pp. 48-49. Oxford University Press, 1990. Hasan al-Banna emphasized that the Islamic revival in Egypt was inseparable from the Arab character of Egypt, and saw Arab lands as the natural heart of the ummah.Mitchell, Richard P. The Society of the Muslim Brothers. pp. 240-241. Oxford University Press, 1969. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, particularly during the 1970s–80s, framed its opposition to the Assad government as both an Islamic and Arab-nationalist struggle.Teitelbaum, Joshua. The Rise and Fall of the Hashimite Kingdom of Arabia. pp. 85. NYU Press, 2005.
The Arab–Israeli conflict strengthened the role of Islam as a defining feature of Arab nationalism. The humiliation felt by the Arabs in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War strengthened Pan-Arabism.Sela, Avraham. "Arab Nationalism." The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002. pp. 153 Pan-Arabism was initially a secular movement. Arab nationalists generally rejected religion in politics, and believed that Arabs were Arabs regardless of religion. However, with Islam being the majority religion among Arabs, it was obvious that Islam would assert some influence on Arab nationalism. Michel Aflaq, a Christian, viewed Islam as an example of the "Arab genius", and once stated that "Muhammad was the epitome of all the Arabs. So let all the Arabs today be Muhammed." They claimed that Islam had given Arabs a "glorious past", unlike the "shameful present".Sela, Avraham. "Arab Nationalism." The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002. pp. 154
Albert Hourani noted that a significant amount of Arab Muslims remained attached to the idea that Arab leadership in Islam was both natural and providential because of the language of the Quran and the origin of Muhammad.Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. pp. 355. Faber & Faber, 1991.
The ideology declined in Iraq under Abdul-Karim Qasim, who was against both Arab nationalism and Islamism. Nationalism was unpopular among Shia Arabs in Iraq, and they saw Arab nationalism as "a Sunni project" to establish "Sunni hegemony", due to the movement being dominated by Sunnis.
The relationship of Arab nationalism and Islam worsened, and Arab nationalism declined after the Israeli victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, in which the Arab nationalist movement faced an "irreversible" shift to "political marginality". During the Arab Spring, secular Arab nationalism further declined. As many Arabs were disgusted by the corruption of secular Arab nationalists, there was an "increasingly violent competition between the state and political Islam for the loyalty, as well as for the hearts and minds of the Arab citizen".Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century, p.317Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century, p.330
After the decolonization of Morocco, there was a growing movement aiming for the official implementation of "Arabo-Islamic culture". When the Istiqlal Party took power, it was successfully implemented.
In October 1963, Ahmed Ben Bella released the Algerian constitution, which asserted that Islam was the state religion, Arabic was the sole national and official language, Algeria was an integral part of the Arab world, and that Arabization was the first priority of the country to reverse French colonization. While trying to build an independent nation-state, the Algerian government under Ahmed Ben Bella began a policy of Arabization, motivated by Islam and nationalism.James McDougall. History and the Culture of Nationalism in Algeria. Cambridge, England, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. 25. Algeria relied on Egyptian teachers belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood for religious education, due to the lack of Quranic Arabic speakers in Algeria.Abu-Haidar, Farida. 2000. 'Arabisation in Algeria'. International Journal of Francophone Studies 3 (3): 151–163. Houari Boumédiène drafted a new Algerian constitution in 1976, also dedicating it to Arab nationalism and Islam. He imposed Arab socialism as the state ideology and Islam as the state religion, and was more effective than Ahmed Ben Bella.