AHC: No Modern Jihadism

Keep the Communists out of the ME during the 60s and 70s.

Keep anything left IN ME. For me, by destroying anything leftist sounding out in the world, helping conservative forces, the USA created a fertile ground for Islamist. It was a potential and attractive alternative to revolted people who wanted changes in the corrupt regimes..

The destruction of socialism and liberalism is a key.
 
Well, people seem to be ignoring one of the root causes, which is just as strong as the influence of Salafism, which is the threat of the West, which is an actual thing, not just some imaginary demon used by rulers to justify dictatorships (Iran is actually a favorite amongst Khaleeji Arab rulers for this role, not Israel or America surprisingly). This supports the surviving Ottoman Empire as a way for the Middle East to combat this threat, which has the added benefit of putting the coffers that come from oil into the hands of the relatively liberal Ottomans, as opposed to the backwards Saudis.

The Cracked article raises an important point, that a lot of the puritanical aspects of modern day Islam are actually fairly recent, and sometimes overstated in importance. Case in point, the thin black robe worn by women in the Gulf, the Abaya, often seen as traditional clothing, is only a relatively recent Iranian import, and traditional Khaleeji clothing is much more colourful. Lots of evidence can be found to support the view that Arab women in the Ottoman empire were not a group of Niqabi's either. The more "puritanical" things come from Saudi Arabia, and Islamic Iran (which was partly caused by Western intervention).

I don't really think the poverty argument cuts it really. Rural Turkey actually tends to be a bit more tolerant then the cities and some of the most puritanical places in the Middle East (Mainly the Gulf) are the better off parts. Afghanistan is a different case altogether however, but there are alternate explanations for its backwardness.

Sorry if this post came off as a bit too anti-Western, but it must be recognised that a lot of the roots of angry Jihad were actually caused by the west. Both directly and indirectly.
 
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Ottomans don't fall apart. No Wahabism (or it's there but is just sort of a joke fringe), pan-Islamism is more of a reaity, Medina-Baghdad-Istanbul railway and a united Empire that no longer sees itself as such just during the Hajj, massive oil revenues ensure that plenty of development happens in the Middle East and Turkey, no Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc.

People who are afraid of Islam, particularly people in America, like to see it as somehow inherent to Islamic culture. The growth of Wahabis and those who "Jihadist" mind-set is like if Pat Buchanan or Glenn Beck had their way with religion in the US. It's a scary thought, and it happened in Saudi Arabia. :eek:
 

Clipper747

Banned
Islamism in the late 20th century in my opinion is a direct result of the failure of Arab Nationalism/secularism/modernism/Communism in the ME during the 1960s and early '70s.

I honestly believe Beijing and Moscow had more to do with the rise of militant Islam than any other external power.
 
Islamism in the late 20th century in my opinion is a direct result of the failure of Arab Nationalism/secularism/modernism/Communism in the ME during the 1960s and early '70s.

I honestly believe Beijing and Moscow had more to do with the rise of militant Islam than any other external power.

I'd rather say the FAILURE of them, in a way, and anti-communism efforts, willing to accept.. other form of autocracy or worse, for The Good Fight...
 
One factor I've not seen mentioned here is the culture clash resultant from urbanization. In say the 1950s the urban areas were relatively culturally liberal, the rural areas conservative. But vast numbers of people from rural areas have been immigrating to cities since then, to the point that people of rural origins make up the majority in places like Istanbul. They were displeased by the culture of liberal urbanites, which generated reactionary Islamist movements among them. Nassirisimo accurately pointed that rural areas are often more tolerant then urban ones, but that's because their's not a liberal element to generate a reactionary backlash in rural areas.

Similarly, to those pointing out how a lot of this fundamentalism is a modern thing rather then traditional, that's only half true. It's a new thing in the same sense that the Tea Party/Libertarian types are a new thing in America- recently emerged angry reactionaries organizing to implement that which they deem to be "traditional values". But that's because such movements would have been redundant in the rural Middle East of the 19th century or Gilded age America, not genuine "newness" on their part.

Unfortunately I don't think theirs any POD that can avert this culture clash, short of derailing the ME/global economy so horribly that the economic factors pulling people to urban areas are destroyed.
 
Al-Qaeda would not have been so 'powerful' if Abu Hadscher, Bin Laden's personal preacher, had not issued thosa Fatwas which made 9/11 possible.

Another PoD could be that Israel did not conquer the Sinai in the Six-Days-War. Or the Sovjets did not invade Afghanistan.
 
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