This is an old revision of this page, as edited by KazakhPol (talk | contribs) at 06:42, 19 February 2007 (citing in case anyone else contests this - someone did a while back). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 06:42, 19 February 2007 by KazakhPol (talk | contribs) (citing in case anyone else contests this - someone did a while back)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Pan-Islamism (اتّحاد الاسلام) is a political movement advocating the unity of Muslims under one Islamic state or Caliphate.
While Pan-Arabism advocates the unity and independence of Arabs regardless of religion, Pan-Islamism focuses on the Islamic world.
The movement has a historical basis in the early years of Islam, when Muhammad united the Arab Peninsula under Islam and, shortly thereafter, Umar united North Africa and most of the Middle East. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani introduced Pan-Islamism during the colonial occupation of the Arab world. Al-Afghani's social policies were highly progressive.
Between World War I and II, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, sought Nazi support in uniting Islam under a new Caliphate in which he would have been Caliph. Al-Husayni wanted to drive the British and French out of the British Mandate of Palestine while he hoped to organize a Holocaust of the Jews in the Middle East with Hitler's support.
As colonialist powers relenquished control of various territories in the 20th Century, Arab and Muslim nationalists were emboldened. The European powers divided the Middle East into nation-states headed by civil servents who promoted modernization, secularism, and social reform.
With the establishment of a Jewish Homeland by the Balfour Declaration, the subsequent establishment of Israel as a country by the United Nations, and the defeat of the Arab states in 1948 and again in 1967, Arab religious leaders taught that a return to Islamic fundamentalism was necessary to destroy Israel.
The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt challenged the secular government of the Wafd Party and, later, the Nasser administration. In Egypt and elsewhere, Pan-Islamists found followers primarily from low and middle-class civilians. However, until the late 1970s, nearly all attempts of Pan-Islamism to take control of country governments were doomed to failure. In 1979 the Iranian Revolution ousted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi from power. Muslim followers of the Deobandi movement, with help from the American and Pakistani governments, successfully forced the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan.
In other cases, serious disputes between Shia and Sunni Islamic factions prevent long-term unity of the Islamic world.