THE MIDDLE EAST
61.
THE REAWAKENING: MOHAMMED ALI AND THE MAHDI
Turkey controlled all of the Middle East since about 1500.
The Turks were Islamic, but not of the Arab race; their
ancestors had
come from the borders of China. Neither
the Arabs nor the Christians nor the Jews in the Middle East loved
their Turkish
masters. Gradually,
the Turkish
empire weakened. Many
groups broke
away in the 1800s--first the Egyptians.
When Napoleon briefly invaded Egypt around 1800, the
Turkish sultan
gathered volunteer soldiers in Albania and sent them to Egypt.
By then, England had chased Napoleon away.
But among these Albanian soldiers was an ambitious former
tax-collector
named Mohammed Ali (mo-HAH-med ah-LEE).
He
quickly rose to the command of the Albanian forces in Egypt.
He began playing the local Egyptian rulers against the
Turkish sultan.
At the right moment, he arrested and massacred the local
rulers, and took
charge of Egypt. The
sultan had no
choice but to appoint Mohammed Ali as the local ruler of Egypt.
His family continued to rule for 150 years.
But Mohammed Ali had greater ambitions.
When a group of Muslim puritans seized control of the holy
cities of
Mecca and Medina in Arabia, the sultan asked Mohammed Ali to drive them
out.
He did so, and kept that part of Arabia for himself.
Next, he turned south and conquered the Sudan.
When Greece revolted from Turkey, the sultan asked
Mohammed Ali for
help--promising him Syria and Palestine if they won.
But the Turks blundered and lost the war.
Mohammed Ali grew so angry he took Syria and Palestine
anyway. He now
controlled all of the holy cities of Islam.
And it looked like he might invade Turkey and become the
new sultan,
himself. The
European powers did
not want a strong ruler in Turkey.
They
warned Mohammed Ali to stay where he was, or risk war against all
Europe.
So he concentrated on modernizing his own lands.
He set up schools and factories.
He
established a cotton industry. In
1838, he declared Egypt's independence from Turkey.
When the sultan tried force, Mohammed Ali persuaded the
whole Turkish
navy to join him. This
was too much
for the European powers. England,
France, and Germany all joined Turkey in driving the
Egyptians out of Syria, Palestine, and Arabia.
They left Mohammed Ali with just Egypt and Sudan.
His descendants continued his modernizing work--especially
in building
the Suez Canal. But
they went into
debt to do it. Soon
British
stockholders controlled the Egyptian economy.
And British military advisors came to look after British
interests.
Local people rose up against British control--not in
Egypt, but in the
Sudan.
In the Sudan, a handsome young priest named Mohammed Ahmed
announced that
he was the Mahdi, or promised savior of the Arab people.
In 1881, he led the revolt against England and Egypt.
Armed only with sticks and strong religious faith, naked
tribesmen
defeated the British army. The
Sudanese people went wild with joy.
Again
and again they swarmed to victory, until they controlled all of Sudan
except the
capital. The Mahdi
announced that
as soon as the capital fell, they would take Mecca, then Jerusalem,
then the
world.
General Gordon was an Englishman who had served Egypt as
governor of the
Sudan. He had quit
in protest
against English meddling in Egyptian affairs.
Now the English persuaded him to return to Sudan and see
what could be
done. Gordon
stubbornly decided to
fight it out in the capital. For
months, the Mahdi's forces surrounded the city while the two leaders
exchanged
courtesies, The Mahdi tried to persuade General Gordon to become
Muslim, and
Gordon refused. Finally,
the Mahdi
attacked, giving instructions not to harm Gordon.
His soldiers forgot, and Gordon died in the battle.
Now that he controlled the whole Sudan, the Mahdi kept his
strict
religious ways in public. But
privately he ate and drank constantly with his enormous harem.
He soon became very fat and died.
His
disciples ruled Sudan until the British army defeated them in 1899.
So Egypt and Sudan passed from Turkey, to independence, to
England.
But Mohammed Ali and the Mahdi had shown Arabs elsewhere
what could be
done.
62.
ABD EL-KADER, WHO TAUGHT EUROPEANS A LESSON IN HONOR
Around 1830, a particularly obnoxious man served as French
ambassador to
Algeria. Finally,
the Turkish ruler of Algeria swatted him across the
face with his fly whisk. France
insisted that its national honor had been insulted, and demanded an
apology.
Turkey refused. France
decided to teach the Turks a lesson in manners, and
invited Egypt to invade Algeria. But
Mohammed Ali of Egypt told the French to do their own dirty work.
By this time, the French had called so much attention to
the incident
that they could not back down without looking silly.
So to save face, the French army invaded Algeria and drove
the Turkish
rulers out.
The tribesmen of Algeria felt delighted to get rid of
their Turkish
masters. They
decided this was also
the time to get rid of the newly-arrived French.
They chose as their leaders an old holy man and his son,
Abd el-Kader (ahb-dool-KAH-der).
Abd el-Kader had traveled in the holy land and across
Egypt, where he
observed Mohammed Ali building a nation.
For
fifteen years, Abd el-Kader and the Algerians held out against the
French army.
At one point, the French agreed to a treaty recognizing
him as ruler of
all Algeria except the coast. They
tried to make it look like they were doing him a favor.
But Abd el-Kader had a keen sense of honor and the
dramatic.
When it came time for the treaty agreement, he kept the
French waiting a
whole day. Then he
arrived at a
different place, so they had to come to him.
When the French representative got down off his horse, Abd
el-Kader
remained on his. When
the Frenchman
finally finished stating all the terms, he quickly agreed, whirled his
horse,
and led his army away--leaving the French standing in the desert and
looking
like fools.
France soon broke the treaty, and Abd el-Kader was plagued
with his old
problem: the Algerian tribesmen were fickle.
They deserted whenever the French approached.
Nor would neighboring Morocco or Tunisia join in the
struggle until
France had captured them too. Three
times France completely beat Abd el-Kader, and three times he raised up
new
armies. The fourth
time, he was
captured. He agreed
to leave
Algeria forever, and the French government promised to take him to
Egypt to live
in peace. Instead,
they put him in
prison in France.
From his prison cell, Abd el-Kader announced to the whole
world how
France had broken its promise. French
leaders tried persuasion, but he would not release them from their
promise.
For this and many other reasons, the French people threw
out their king
and set up a republic. Napoleon
III, president of the new republic, released the Algerian hero from
jail.
He became the darling of French society, speaking at
lectures, attending
parties and banquets. He
stayed in France long enough to vote for Napoleon III as
emperor. Then he
left for the
Middle East, settling eventually in Syria.
Riots broke out in Syria against the Christian minority.
Abd el-Kader and his household staff rescued four thousand
Christians
from the mob. When
the mob stormed
his house, he angrily addressed them, scolding them about Arabic
courage in
Algeria and Arabic cowardice in mob violence and murder, The crowd
broke up, and
he offered a reward for every Christian
brought
to him alive--thus saving another eight thousand persons.
Seeing his justice, Frenchmen suggested he be made
governor of Algeria.
But he refused, insisting he would keep his promise to
stay out.
Years later, when bandits began a rebellion in Algeria,
Abd el-Kader
advised the Algerian people that these were not real leaders.
He told them to remain under French control and wait for a
leader of
vision and honor who could unite the Algerian tribes in a cause of
justice.
He spent his last years writing books on philosophy and
horses.
His home became a favorite stopping-place for the great
writers and
adventurers who passed through the Middle East in the third quarter of
the
1800s. But above
all else, Abd el-Kader
remained a symbol of Arabic honor which Europeans could not quite
forget.
63.
HUSEIN, ABDULLAH, AND FAISAL--A FAMILY OF LIBERATORS
In the early 1900s, two powers controlled most of the
Arabian peninsula.
King Ibn Saud ruled the central desert, called Nejd.
Turkey controlled the whole west coast, called Hejaz
(heh-JAZ).
Hejaz included the main cities of Mecca and Medina.
The appointed local ruler of Hejaz was a descendant of
Muhammad, named
Husein (hoo-SAYN).
Husein wanted to free all of the Arab lands from the Turks.
He got his chance when Turkey entered World War I on the
German side.
Husein sent his second son, Abdullah (ahb-doo-LAH), to
negotiate help
from England. The
third son, Faisal
(F¦-sal), did not trust European governments, and
argued that the Arabs
would be better off under the Turks.
But
the Turks committed such atrocities on Arabs that Faisal finally led
the Arab
and English forces against Turkey.
Faisal
and his armies freed Hejaz, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria.
At war's end, it became known that England and France had
planned from
the beginning to let only Hejaz stay free, and to divide all of the
other
countries between England and France.
Husein
became furious. Faisal
rushed to
the peace conference, but only Woodrow Wilson would listen to him.
The people of Syria declared their independence from
everyone, and chose
Faisal as their king. The
people of
Iraq declared their independence, and chose Abdullah.
The French army marched into Lebanon and Syria, and drove
Faisal out.
By this time the Arabs had grown so angry, that England
decided to
compromise. It let.
the people of
Iraq elect a king. They
chose Faisal. Abdullah
became ruler of Jordan. England
granted both countries their freedom very, very slowly.
In fact, Jordan did not become totally free until after
World War II.
England kept Palestine. (See Chapter 6.)
HEJAZ
JORDAN
IRAQ
Husein
1918-24
Ali
Abdullah I
Faisal I
1924-25
1921-51
1921-33
Talal
Gazi
1951-52
1933-39
Husein
Faisal II
1952-99
1939-58
Abdullah II
1999-
King Husein grew bitter with anger, He refused to
compromise on anything.
He condemned his sons for compromising.
He told the European governments he wanted no more of
their
"help." King Ibn
Saud of
Nejd had always felt jealous of Husein's fame.
Now that the old man had cut himself off from all friends,
Ibn Saud
invaded Hejaz. Husein
resigned in
favor of his sick oldest son, hoping that would satisfy Ibn Saud.
But Ibn Saud kept right on coming, and united Nejd and
Hejaz into one
nation as Saudi Arabia. Husein,
who
had masterminded the entire Arab liberation, was left without even a
home.
He lived a few years in Cyprus, then died in Jordan.
King Faisal ruled Iraq well.
But
he died suddenly and his twenty-year-old son came to the throne
unprepared.
The new king let the army take too much control.
He died in an automobile accident a few years later, and
Faisal II became
king at age four. While
the boy
grew up, various military leaders came to power through assassination.
The king was assassinated at age twenty-three, and the
military took over
completely.
Abdullah ruled Jordan for thirty years--mostly under
British control.
Because Abdullah tried to reach a settlement with Israel,
an Arab
extremist shot him. His
sixteen-year-old grandson Husein (hoo-SAYN)l was with him at
the time, and
barely escaped. The
next year,
Husein became king because of his father's poor health.
Over the years, Husein suggested several sane and fair
settlements of the
Arab-Israeli conflict--suggestions which no one on either side wanted
to hear.
He became an important world leader for peace.
The desert tribes loved their brave and wise king.
And they protected him long after the rest of his family
had lost their
lands and their lives.
64.
ATATURK: REFORM AT THE HEART OF TURKEY
As the Turkish empire crumbled, young Turkish army
officers grew
convinced that Turkey needed to change fast.
In 1876, they forced the sultan to accept a constitution,
but he soon
ignored it. In
1908, they replaced him with a new sultan and put the
constitution in force again. These
officers called themselves the Young Turks.
They hoped to unify the empire into a modern and efficient
state.
But the various minorities in the empire had become more
interested in
winning their freedom, Groups on the European fringe one-by-one broke
free:
Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece.
Italy took Libya, Turkey's last possession in Africa.
And Russia kept creeping southward.
Turkey entered World War I on the losing side; England,
France, Russia,
Italy, and Greece planned to divide Turkey between them.
Russia dropped out of the war and got nothing, The sultan
signed an
agreement to partition Turkey among the other winners.
But one person objected--an army officer known to history
as Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk (moos-ta-FAH keh-MAHL ah-ta-TURK). (His teacher had given
him his
second name, which means "perfection."
The Turkish people later gave him the third name, which
means
"father of the Turks.") Ataturk
set up his own government, and declared Turkey a republic.
The Greek army invaded Turkey, while American, British,
and French
battleships watched nearby. Ataturk
drove the Greeks out. The
other
powers gave up their ideas of sharing Turkey.
Over the years, Ataturk became more and more
dictatorial--though he
remained popular. He
quickly modernized Turkey by separating church from state.
He replaced church law with national laws.
He outlawed polygamy and gave women the vote.
He set up modern schools.
He
ordered that people write the Turkish language in Western letters,
rather than
in the Arabic script.
Some of his anti-religious methods were a bit sneakier: he
ordered all
Turks to wear wide-brimmed Western hats.
This
meant that when they bowed in prayer, their hats fell off--which was
considered
indecent.
He used the Russian idea of a five-year plan for
industrial development,
He made the rest of the world quit laughing at feeble old Turkey.
In just fifteen years, he forged his country into a modern
nation, The
only possible comparison would be the modernization of Japan.
The Arabic countries did not want to give up their
religion; instead they
found new union and strength in it.
But
other Islamic nations which were not of the Arabic race decided that
Ataturk had
hit on a good idea. The
rulers of
Iran and Afghanistan both modernized their countries by imitating
Ataturk's
policies. Thus
Turkey became a
leader in the Muslim world--as it had never been when it ruled the
empire.
65.
KAHLIL GIBRAN, WHO MERGED BEAUTY, LOVE AND WISDOM
Kahlil Gibran (kah-LEEL joob-RAHN) was a Christian Arab
from Lebanon.
The population of Lebanon is about half Christian, half
Muslim.
Young Gibran wrote books about religious corruption and
political
injustice in the Middle East--which Turkey controlled at the time.
While Gibran studied art in Paris under the sculptor,
Rodin, the Turkish
government announced he could not return to Lebanon.
They publicly burned his books.
Gibran joined part of his family in the United
States--where he lived the
rest of his short life, dying at age forty-eight.
He began combining his poetry with his paintings in
sensitive little
books which moved people around the world.
Perhaps no one but Gandhi spoke to the hearts of so many
people in the
twentieth century.
Gibran's best-loved book is The Prophet.
The wise old prophet is leaving, and people ask him for
his wisdom on
various topics:
from
THE PROPHET by KAHLIL GIBRAN
Then
Almitra spoke again and said, And
what of Marriage, master?
And he
answered saying:
You were born
together, and together you shall
be forevermore
You shall be
together when the white wings of
death scatter your days.
And you shall
be together even in the silent
memory of God.
But let there
be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the
winds of the heavens dance between
you.
Love one
another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather
be a moving sea between the
shores of your
souls.
Fill each
other's cup but drink not from one
cup,
Give one
another of your bread but eat not from
the same loaf.
Sing and
dance together and. be joyous, but let
each one of you be alone,
Even as the
strings of a lute are alone though
they quiver with the same music.
Give your
hearts, but not into each other's
keeping,
For only the
hand of Life can contain your
hearts.
And stand
together, yet not too near together:
For the
pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak
tree and the cypress grow not in
each other's shadow.
And
a woman who held a babe against her, bosom said, Speak to us of
Children.
And he said:
Your children
are not your children.
They are the
sons and daughters of Life's
longing for itself.
They come
through you but not from you,
And though
they are with you, yet they belong
not to you.
You may give
them your love but not your
thoughts.
For they have
their own thoughts.
You may house
their bodies but not their souls,
For their
souls dwell In the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may
strive to be like them, but seek not to
make them like you.
For life goes
not backward nor tarries* with
yesterday.
*waits
You are the
bows from which your children as
living arrows are sent forth.
The archer
sees the mark upon the path of the
infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift
and far.
Let your
bending in the archer's hand be for
gladness;
For even as
he loves the arrow that flies, so
He loves also the bow that is stable....
Then
said a teacher, Speak to us of Teaching.
And he said:
No man can
reveal to you aught+ but that which
already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
+anything
The teacher
who walks in the shadow of the
temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his
faith and
his lovingness.
If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house
of
his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
The
astronomer may speak to you of his
understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.
The Musician
may sing to you of the rhythm
which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests#
the rhythm
nor the voice that echoes it.
#captures
And he who is
versed in the science of numbers
can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct
you
thither.@ For the
vision of one man
lends not its
wings
@there
to another man,
And even as
each one of you stands alone in
God's knowledge so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of
God and in
his understanding of the earth.
66.
ISRAEL, THE PROMISED LAND
Muslims, Jews, and Christians all worship the same god and share
the same religious heritage. (See
Volume I, Chapter 54.) For
well
over a thousand years, Jews and Muslims lived peaceably together.
In fact, Jews usually found more freedom in Muslim lands
than
in Christian lands. The
hatred between
Muslims
and Jews has developed only since 1920.
It is important to distinguish between Judaism and
Zionism: Judaism is an
ancient religious faith; Zionism is a modern striving for a Jewish
nation.
Not all Jews believe in Zionism.
And
people who criticize Zionism often have nothing against Judaism or the
Jewish
people. Do not let
emotion spill
across these distinctions.
For centuries, Jewish people wandered from nation to
nation--always
feeling homeless, always a tiny minority.
When
European nations carved up the rest of the world in the late 1800s,
Jewish
leaders began asking for some small corner of the globe as a homeland
for Jews.
In 1903, England offered Uganda in Africa.
Jewish leaders turned it down, and decided to wait for a
better offer in
the Middle East.
In World War I, England made too many promises in the
Middle East.
To get help, it promised Palestine to the Arabs, to the
Jews, and to the
French--when actually England planned to keep Palestine for itself.
England betrayed the Arabs.
(See
Chapter 3.) It
squeezed France out
by promising to share Palestine with the Jews.
Actually, England took over and did very little else.
By their own efforts, Jewish people moved to Palestine and
bought land.
The Jewish population of Palestine rose from 8% after
World War I to 30%
by World War II. The
increasing
Jewish minority made Arabs nervous, and racial outbreaks occurred
frequently. Both
sides turned to terrorism.
After Hitler's massacre of the Jews, many people all over
the world felt
that Jews had suffered long enough.
World
opinion began demanding a homeland for the Jewish people.
England pulled out of
Palestine, announcing that it could no
longer control the emotional outbreaks.
The
United Nations divided Palestine into several odd-shaped chunks--about
half of
the land to become Israeli, the other half to remain Arab.
As soon as Israel became a nation in 1947, Syria, Lebanon,
Iraq, Jordan,
Saudi Arabia, and Egypt all attacked it together.
They lost. The
Israelis had
learned well the war lessons of Hitler.
Now
Israel controlled--not half of Palestine--but three-fourths of it.
The other quarter became part of Jordan--though many
Palestinians did not
like Jordan's search for peace with Israel.
Another little strip became part of Egypt.
Thousands of Palestinians lived in refugee camps--driven
out of their
homes by the Jews. Bitterly,
they
waited for their return. They
had
children; the children grew up and had children of their own.
Still they waited in bitterness.
Meanwhile, Israelis set up collective farms and created a
prosperous
nation out of the desert. By
their
hard work and dedication, they earned the right to call Israel their
home.
Many times, the Arabs threatened to go to war.
In 1967, Israel decided to end this threat with a powerful
attack.
In just six days, Israel conquered all the rest of
Palestine, plus the
whole Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, plus a strip of Syria.
World opinion began to shift away from Israel in favor of
the Arabs.
Some argue the unfairness of the Palestinians having their
land given
away. Others argue
the unfairness
of the Jews having no place to flee from persecution.
And both sides are right.
Both
situations were unfair. But
now the
problem has compounded. Israel
has
become the home of the Jews. To
make them give it up now would add yet another unfairness to this sorry
history.
Muslims and Jews share the same religious heritage.
It is a heritage of no compromise.
Either
one side must destroy the other, or they must learn to live in peace
once more.
67.
ARAB UNITY--OASIS OR MIRAGE?
In the twentieth century, people made at least three big
attempts to
unify the Arab nations. All
three
attempts failed.
As Turkey was losing its grip on the Middle East, it
scrambled to promote
an idea called the Pan-Islamic Movement.
In
this way, the Turkish sultan would have became a sort of pope over all
Muslims
of whatever nationality. But
Muslim
nations stretched from Indonesia to Africa.
The histories of these far-flung nations had developed so
differently
that they felt no ties to Turkey.
Oven
in the Middle East, the Arabs showed more interest in getting out from
under
Turkey's political control. Besides,
the Arabs felt that Islam was an Arabic religion, and the Turks were
not Arabic.
Indeed, just a few years later, the Turkish government
broke off its
official ties with the Muslim religion.
Then the Arabs fought for independence.
They expected to create one large Arab nation.
But England and France divided the Middle East into
several small
countires, and kept control of most of them.
Arab leaders felt that only by sticking together could
they drive the
Europeans out. They
dreamed of
Pan-Arabism to weld the Arabs into a unified world power.
But though the members could work together against
outsiders like the
Europeans and the Jews, they could not agree among themselves.
The Egyptians thought they should lead the movement,
because they had the
largest Arab population and the most industrial economy.
The leaders of Iraq argued that Baghdad had always been
the true capital
of the Arab world. And
the leaders
of Saudi Arabia insisted
that
the capital of Islam should center in Mohammed's homeland.
To make coöperation even worse, a bitter family
feud raged between the
king of Saudi Arabia and the kings of Iraq and Jordan.
The third attempt at unification was the work of one man:
Gamal Abdel
Nasser (NAH-ser) of Egypt. In
1952,
he threw Egypt's fat playboy king out of office, and made Egypt a
republic.
He finally got rid of the British army units which still
guarded the Suez
Canal. When the
West and the
Communist block each tried to buy friends in the Middle East, Nasser
skillfully
took money from both sides. Undeveloped
nations in Africa and Asia began looking to Nasser for leadership
against the
giant powers. Nasser
called on the
Arab nations to unite. In
1958,
Syria and Egypt did combine into the United Arab Republic, with Nasser
as
president. But the
desert-dwelling
Syrians were not used to taking orders like the Egyptiqns were.
Three years later, Syria pulled out of the union.
While cementing together another union between Egypt,
Sudan, and Libya,
Nasser died suddenly in 1970.
Perhaps a fourth attempt at Arab unity is shaping up.
Arabs often unite in their oil policies.
By the beginning of the twenty-first century, Islamic
fundamentalists of
many nations began working together as international terrorist
organizations.
Their main goal was to overthrow the
not-particularly-religious leaders
of countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, and
Syria.
Their secondary goal was to push out the foreign powers
who helped to
support such separation of mosque and state.
Can Arab nations ever work together to become a strong
force in world
politics? Or have
centuries of
desert living made the Arabs so self-reliant and independent that they
can never
coöperate?
68.
OIL TO GREASE THE PALM
Through history, the world's population has slowly risen. But since 1850, world
population has boomed.
More than half of the people who ever lived are alive
today.
Man's technology raced to keep ahead of the demand for
food.
New breeds of plants, chemical fertilizers, and giant
machines multiplied
production.
But keeping the world fed required energy.
At first, people burned wood to make steam--a not very
efficient method.
Then they began burning coal and oil--fossil fuels formed
over millions
of years and impossible to replace when gone.
Meanwhile, scientists discovered many other uses for oil,
such as
plastics and medicines.
As the developed nations raced ahead for more population,
more food, more
energy, they scarcely noticed that their money was being drained away
to the
oil-producing countries. The
Arabs
became the first to realize that population, food, energy, and finance
were
linked world problems--and that they held part of the controls.
In the early 1970s, the Arab nations got together and
raised the price of
oil tremendously. Overnight,
the Arab nations became one of the most powerful
forces on the earth. It
looked like
they would also become the richest, and turn world finances upside-down.
Drillers had discovered oil in Persia in the early 1900s,
but the big
discoveries in the Arabian peninsula did not happen until the 1930s. The oil lay under some of
the poorest desert areas in the,
world--so poor that no nation had even bothered to claim them.
Local desert sheikhs suddenly found themselves ruling
wealthy areas.
Unheard-of specks like Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Dubai
became world
powers.
In Kuwait, for instance, drillers did not discover oil
until the 1950s.
In almost no time, Kuwait became the world's
fourth-largest oil
producer--behind only Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the United States.
Desert tribesmen of Kuwait found themselves
millionaires--though most of
them could not read or write. The
government established programs to wipe out poverty, illness, and
hardship. Beggars
line the streets of most Asian cities--but not in
Kuwait. There the
streets are lined
with the tents of merchants selling gold jewelry.
Oil meant a tremendous change in lifestyle in the Middle
East.
Too often it meant that the ruler squandered money on
fancy cars, while
the people lived as they always had.
But
revolutions in Saudi Arabia, Yeman, and other countries put
plain-living men in
charge, who promised to share the wealth more broadly.
The money piles up. Arab
investors eye the world financial situation.
Could it be that the Arabs have at last found the unity
and power for
which they have searched so long?
69.
ADDITIONAL TOPICS
BAHA'I
FAITH
In 1844, a religious teacher appeared in Persia (Iran). He called himself the Bab,
and announced that the promised
messiah would soon follow. He
taught people to live purely until they discovered God within
themselves.
The Muslim authorities had him shot in 1850.
Among the Bab's disciples was a brilliant and beautiful
young woman
called Tahirih (TAH-he-reh). She
wrote poetry spreading the Bab's message, and she debated his ideas
with Muslim
leaders. She became
an early
women's rights leader, and one of the first Muslim women to appear in
public
without a veil. The
authorities had
her strangled.
In 1863, a teacher called Bahalu'llah (bah-HAH ool-LAH)
announced that he
was the messiah. He
taught that the
time had come for all the world's religions to melt into one. He died in 1892, after
founding the Baha'i (bah-HI) Faith, It
was the first world religion, because it merged all faiths.
It spread around the world, and is rapidly growing.
CYPRUS
The region now called Turkey once formed the heart of the
Greek Orthodox
religion, until the Turks overran the area around 1500.
The Turks also conquered the nearby island of Cyprus, but
the majority of
the people remained Greek. By
the
1870s, several such Greek islands were fighting
for
independence from Turkey. So
Turkey
called a conference to settle the matter.
The
English ambassador also attended with instructions to get the island of
Crete
for England. For
Crete blocked
Russia's way to the sea, The ambassador forgot the name of the island,
but
remembered that it started with a "C".
So he asked for Cyprus by mistake.
For years, England tried to put down Cyprus' racial
squabbles.
Some of the islanders thought they should be part of
Turkey; others
insisted they should be part of Greece.
Finally
in 1959, all three nations agreed to make Cyprus an independent
republic.
And each guaranteed to protect Cyprus' freedom from the
others.
Since then, racial disturbances between Greeks and Turks
have erupted
almost every year. Greek
and Turkish forces have both invaded, and England has
unsuccessfully tried to keep the peace.
SIR
RICHARD BURTON
Sir Richard Burton was a wild Englishman of the 1800s. He traveled all over the
world--especially in the Middle
East. Wherever he
went, he learned
the local languages with amazing speed, and scientifically recorded the
sexual
practices. Disguised
as a Muslim,
he traveled by camel to the forbidden city of Mecca, and wrote a book
about it.
Then he dashed off to Africa, where he discovered the
great lakes which
feed the Nile. He
later served as ambassador at Damascus.
He translated books from the Arabic--especially The
Arabian Nights
in sixteen volumes. When
he died
his good Christian wife burned most of his papers.
LAWRENCE
OF ARABIA
T.E. Lawrence was the British advisor for Faisal's army in
World War I.
(See Chapter 3.) The
Arabs loved
this quiet scholar of Arabic architecture.
He became a popular guerilla leader, and specialized in
blowing up
trains. American
newsmen grew
intrigued with this strange Englishman, and broadcast the Arab
liberation
struggle around the world.
Lawrence tried to stop the betrayal of the Arabs at the
peace conference.
When he failed, he dropped out of sight and wrote a book
about his
adventures. He did
at least
persuade England to let Faisal become king of Iraq.
Lawrence died in a motorcycle accident in 1935.
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