The Al-Muthanna Club ( ar, نادي المثنى) was an influential

pan-Arab Pan-Arabism ( ar, الوحدة العربية or ) is an ideology that espouses the unification of the countries of North Africa and Western Asia from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, which is referred to as the Arab world. It is closely c ...

fascist Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the ...

society established in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

ca. 1935 to 1937 which remained active until May 1941, when the coup d'état of pro-

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

Rashid Ali al-Gaylani Rashid Ali al-Gaylaniin Arab standard pronunciation Rashid Aali al-Kaylani; also transliterated as Sayyid Rashid Aali al-Gillani, Sayyid Rashid Ali al-Gailani or sometimes Sayyad Rashid Ali el Keilany (" Sayyad" serves to address higher standing ...

failed. It was named after Al-Muthanna ibn Haritha, an Iraqi

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

general who led forces that helped to defeat the

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

Sassanids The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...

at the

Battle of al-Qādisiyyah The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah ( ar, مَعْرَكَة ٱلْقَادِسِيَّة, Maʿrakah al-Qādisīyah; fa, نبرد قادسیه, Nabard-e Qâdisiyeh) was an armed conflict which took place in 636 CE between the Rashidun Caliphate and th ...

. Later known as the ''National Democratic Party'', Nadi al-Muthanna was influenced by European fascism and controlled by radical Arab nationalists who, according to 2005's ''Memories of State'', "formed the core of new radicals" for a combined Pan-Arab civilian and military coalition.''

The Encyclopaedia of Islam The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies published by Brill. It is considered to be the standard reference work in the field of Islamic studies. The first edition was published ...

'', Volume 4, p. 125, by

Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb (2 January 1895 – 22 October 1971), known as H. A. R. Gibb, was a Scottish historian and Orientalist. Early life and education Gibb was born on Wednesday, 2 January 1895, in Alexandria, Egypt, ...

, Johannes Hendrik Kramers,

Bernard Lewis Bernard Lewis, (31 May 1916 – 19 May 2018) was a British American historian specialized in Oriental studies. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near ...

Charles Pellat Charles Pellat (28 September 1914, in Souk Ahras – 28 October 1992, in Bourg-la-Reine) was an Algerian-born French academic, historian, translator, and scholar of Oriental studies, specialized in Arab studies and Islamic studies. He was an edi ...

Joseph Schacht Joseph Franz Schacht (, 15 March 1902 – 1 August 1969) was a British-German professor of Arabic and Islam at Columbia University in New York. He was the leading Western scholar on Islamic law, whose ''Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence'' (195 ...

, 1954

/ref>

Sami Shawkat

In 1938, as

fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and t ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

grew, Saib Shawkat, a known fascist and a

nationalist, was appointed director-general of education. The al-Muthanna club, under

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

ambassador

Fritz Grobba Fritz Konrad Ferdinand Grobba (18 July 1886 – 2 September 1973) was a German diplomat during the interwar period and World War II. Early life He was born in Gartz on the Oder in the Province of Brandenburg, Germany. His parents were Rudolf G ...

's influence, developed a youth organization, the

al-Futuwwa Futuwwa (Arabic: فتوة, "young-manliness" or "chivalry") was a conception of moral behavior around which myriad institutions of Medieval confraternity developed. With characteristics similar to chivalry and virtue, these communal associations of ...

, modeled on

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

lines and on the

Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...

. it was founded in 1939 by then director-general of Iraq's education (al-Muthanna's co-founder)

activist

Saib Shawkat Saib Shawkat ( ar, صائب شوكت; 1898 – 13 February 1984) was an Iraqi doctor and politician who was an Arab nationalist leader in Iraq. Medical career He was from an upscale patriotic Baghdadian family and studied at a medical school in ...

(with co-founder:

Taha al-Hashimi Taha al-Hashimi (Arabic: طه الهاشمي ;1961–1888) served briefly as prime minister of Iraq for two months, from February 1, 1941, to April 1, 1941. He was appointed prime minister by the regent, 'Abd al-Ilah, following the first ouster o ...

), and was under his guidance. He is also famous for his 1933 speech "The Manufacture of Death", in which he preached for the highest calling of accepting death for the

pan-Arabism Pan-Arabism ( ar, الوحدة العربية or ) is an ideology that espouses the unification of the countries of North Africa and Western Asia from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, which is referred to as the Arab world. It is closely c ...

cause, he argued that the ability to cause and accept death in pursuit of

ideals was the highest calling. It has been said, that Shawkat's path (ideology and military youth movement), influenced the Popular Army and youth organizations of the Baath Party, which appeared much later on.

Yunis al-Sabawi

Yunis al-Sab'awi (يونس السبعاوي) (who translated

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

's book ''Mein Kampf'' into Arabic in the early 1930s) was active in the al-Muthanna club and in the leadership of the al-Futuwwa. He was a deputy in the

i government, minister of economics.''Britain's informal empire in the Middle East: a case study of Iraq, 1929–1941'', Daniel Silverfarb, Oxford University Press US, 1986, p. 13

/ref> Al-Sab'awi had become antisemitic; on 1 and 2 June 1941, members of al-Muthanna and its youth organization led a mob that attacked Baghdad's Jewish community in a

pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...

later named the Farhud. Yunis al-Sabawi planned even a larger slaughter of Jews but his deportation prevented that.

References

{{Authority control Arab nationalism in Iraq Arab nationalist organizations Far-right politics in Asia Fascist parties Fascism in the Arab world Pan-Arabist organizations Politics of Iraq 1935 establishments in Iraq 1941 disestablishments in Iraq

Sami Shawkat

Yunis al-Sabawi

See also

References