
Arab nationalism () is a political ideology asserting that
Arabs
Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world.
Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...
constitute a single
nation
A nation is a type of social organization where a collective Identity (social science), identity, a national identity, has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, t ...
. As a traditional nationalist ideology, it promotes
Arab culture and civilization, celebrates
Arab history, the
Arabic language
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
and
Arabic literature
Arabic literature ( / ALA-LC: ''al-Adab al-‘Arabī'') is the writing, both as prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is ''Adab (Islam), Adab'', which comes from a meaning of etiquett ...
. It often also calls for
unification of Arab society.
[Requiem for Arab Nationalism]
by Adeed Dawisha, ''Middle East Quarterly'', Winter 2003 It bases itself on the premise that the people of the
Arab world
The Arab world ( '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in ...
—from the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
to the
Arabian Sea
The Arabian Sea () is a region of sea in the northern Indian Ocean, bounded on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel, on the northwest by Gulf of Oman and Iran, on the north by Pakistan, on the east by India, and ...
—constitute one nation bound together by
a common identity:
ethnicity
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they Collective consciousness, collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, ...
, language, culture, history,
geography
Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...
, and
politics
Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...
.
[Charles Smith, The Arab-Israeli Conflict, in ''International Relations in the Middle East'' by Louise Fawcett, p. 220.][Sela, 151]
One of the primary goals of modern Arab nationalism is ridding the Arab world of influence from the
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also const ...
, and the removal of those Arab governments that are considered to be dependent upon
Western hegemony. This form of the ideology is rooted in the undesirable outcome of the
Arab Revolt; in successfully achieving their primary goal of
dissolving the Ottoman Empire, the Arab rebels simultaneously enabled the
partitioning of their would-be unified Arab state by Western powers.
Anti-Western sentiment
Anti-Western sentiment, also known as anti-Atlanticism or Westernophobia, refers to broad opposition, bias, or hostility towards the people, culture, or policies of the Western world.
This sentiment is found worldwide. It often stems from ant ...
grew as Arab nationalists centralized themselves around the newfound
Palestine cause, promoting the view that
Zionism
Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
posed an existential threat to the territorial integrity and political of the entire region, and that the resulting
Arab–Israeli conflict
The Arab–Israeli conflict is a geopolitical phenomenon involving military conflicts and a variety of disputes between Israel and many Arab world, Arab countries. It is largely rooted in the historically supportive stance of the Arab League ...
was directly linked to Western imperialism due to the
Balfour Declaration. Arab unity was considered a necessary instrument to "restoring this lost part" of the nation, which in turn meant eliminating the "relics" of foreign colonialism. Arab nationalism emerged in the early 20th century as an opposition movement in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, later evolving into the overwhelmingly dominant ideological force in the Arab world. Its influence steadily expanded over subsequent years. By the 1950s and 1960s, the charismatic Egyptian leader
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian military officer and revolutionary who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 a ...
championed Arab nationalism, and political parties like the
Ba'ath Party
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party ( ' ), also known simply as Bath Party (), was a political party founded in Syria by Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and associates of Zaki al-Arsuzi. The party espoused Ba'athism, which is an ideology ...
and the
Arab Nationalist Movement demonstrated remarkable capabilities for mobilization, organization, and clandestine activities. This ideology seemed to be on the rise across the independent Arab states.
Its influence began to wane in the following decades, with the rise of
nation-state
A nation state, or nation-state, is a political entity in which the state (a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory) and the nation (a community based on a common identity) are (broadly or ideally) con ...
nationalism mostly promoted by each Arab state and the emergence of Islamic radicalism filling the perceived void. However, the ideology as a whole began to decline across the Arab world following the decisive Israeli victory in the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
.
Although pan-Arab nationalism lost appeal by the 1990s, it continued to exercise an intellectual hegemony throughout the Arab world.
Notable personalities and groups that are associated with Arab nationalism include
Hussein bin Ali,
Faisal I of Iraq
Faisal I bin Hussein bin Ali Al-Hashemi (, ''Fayṣal al-Awwal bin Ḥusayn bin ʻAlī al-Hāshimī''; 20 May 1885 – 8 September 1933) was King of Iraq from 23 August 1921 until his death in 1933. A member of the Hashemites, Hashemite family, ...
,
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian military officer and revolutionary who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 a ...
,
Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat (4 or 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), also popularly known by his Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, Presid ...
,
George Habash,
Michel Aflaq
Michel Aflaq (, ; 9 January 1910 – 23 June 1989) was a Syrian philosopher, sociology, sociologist and Arab nationalism, Arab nationalist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism and its political movement; he ...
,
Ahmed Ben Bella,
Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (20 October 2011) was a Libyan military officer, revolutionary, politician and political theorist who ruled Libya from 1969 until Killing of Muammar Gaddafi, his assassination by Libyan Anti-Gaddafi ...
,
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...
, the
Arab Nationalist Movement, the
Palestine Liberation Organization
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ) is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinians, Palestinian people in both the occupied Pale ...
, and the
Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party.
Ideology
Arab nationalists believe that the Arab nation existed as a historical entity prior to the rise of nationalism in the 19th–20th century. The Arab nation was formed through the gradual establishment of Arabic as the language of communication and with the advent of Islam as a religion and culture in the region. Both Arabic and Islam served as the pillars of the nation. According to writer Youssef M. Choueiri, Arab nationalism represents the "Arabs' consciousness of their specific characteristics as well as their endeavor to build a modern state capable of representing the common will of the nation and all its constituent parts."
Within the Arab nationalist movement are three main ideas: that of the Arab nation; Arab nationalism; and
pan-Arab unity. The
1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine
A popular uprising by Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine against the British administration, later known as the Great Revolt, the Great Palestinian Revolt, or the Palestinian Revolution, lasted from 1936 until 1939. The movement sought i ...
led to the foundation of the Arab nationalist
Ba'ath Party
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party ( ' ), also known simply as Bath Party (), was a political party founded in Syria by Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and associates of Zaki al-Arsuzi. The party espoused Ba'athism, which is an ideology ...
, which asserts that the Arab nation is the group of people who speak Arabic, inhabit the
Arab world
The Arab world ( '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in ...
, and who feel they belong to the same nation, ideologies which originated from
Sati' al-Husri's works.
Arab nationalism is the "sum total" of the characteristics and qualities exclusive to the Arab nation, whereas pan-Arab unity is the modern idea that stipulates that the separate Arab countries must unify to form a single state under one political system.
Local patriotism centered on individual Arab countries was incorporated into the framework of Arab nationalism starting in the 1920s. This was done by positioning the
Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world.
Geographically, the ...
as the homeland of the
Semitic people
Semitic people or Semites is a term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group[Canaan
CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...]
ites and
Arameans
The Arameans, or Aramaeans (; ; , ), were a tribal Semitic people in the ancient Near East, first documented in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. Their homeland, often referred to as the land of Aram, originally covered c ...
of the
Levant
The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...
and the
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...
ns and
Babylonia
Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...
ns of
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
) who migrated throughout the
Near East
The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...
in ancient times or by associating the other pre-Islamic cultures, such as those of
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
and North Africa and
Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...
, into an evolving
Arab identity.
The modern Arabic language actually has two distinct words which can be translated into English as "nationalism": ''qawmiyya'' قومية, derived from the word ''qawm'' (meaning "tribe, ethnic nationality"), and ''wataniyya'' وطنية, derived from the word ''watan'' (meaning "homeland, native country"). The term ''qawmiyya'' means attachment to the Arab nation, while ''wataniyya'' means loyalty to a single Arab state. ''Wataniyya'' is sometimes disparaged as "regionalism" by those who consider pan-Arabism the only legitimate variant of Arab nationalism.
In the post-World War years, the concept of ''qawmiyya'' "gradually assumed a
leftist connotation, calling for ... the creation of revolutionary Arab unity."
[Sela, 154] Groups who subscribed to this point of view advocated opposition, violent and non-violent, against Israel and against Arabs who did not subscribe to this point of view. The person most identified with ''qawmiyya'' was
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian military officer and revolutionary who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 a ...
of Egypt, who used both military and political power to spread
his version of pan-Arab ideology throughout the Arab world. While ''qawmiyya'' still remains a potent political force today, the death of Nasser and the Arab defeat in the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
has weakened faith in this ideal. The current dominant ideology among Arab policy makers has shifted to ''wataniyya''.
History
Origins
Throughout the late 19th century, beginning in the 1860s, a sense of loyalty to the "Fatherland" developed in intellectual circles based in the Levant and Egypt, but not necessarily an "Arab Fatherland". It developed from observance of the technological successes of Western Europe which they attributed to the prevailing of patriotism in those countries.
[Khalidi, p.6.] During this period, a heavy influx of Christian missionaries and educators from
Western countries provided what was termed the "Arab political revival", resulting in the establishment of secret societies within the empire.
The former was also possible with the influence of the intellectual movement produced by the expansion of journalism using a unifying language, with the creation of newspapers in Arabic, as well as the publication of an Arabic dictionary and an encyclopedia during the late 1860s and the early 1870s. This allowed the questioning (albeit limited), of Ottoman power. Accordingly, in the 1860s, literature produced in the
Mashriq
The Mashriq (; ), also known as the Arab Mashriq (), sometimes spelled Mashreq or Mashrek, is a term used by Arabs to refer to the eastern part of the Arab world, as opposed to the Maghreb (western) region, and located in West Asia and easter ...
(the Levant and
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
) which was under Ottoman control at the time, contained emotional intensity and strongly condemned the
Ottoman Turks
The Ottoman Turks () were a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group in Anatolia. Originally from Central Asia, they migrated to Anatolia in the 13th century and founded the Ottoman Empire, in which they remained socio-politically dominant for the e ...
for "betraying Islam" and the Fatherland to the Christian West. In the view of Arab patriots, Islam had not always been in a "sorry state" and attributed the military triumphs and cultural glories of the Arabs to the advent of the religion, insisting that European modernism itself was of Islamic origin. The Ottomans, on the other hand, had deviated from true Islam and thus suffered decline. The reforming Ottoman and Egyptian governments were blamed for the situation because they attempted to borrow Western practices from the Europeans that were seen as unnatural and corrupt. The Arab patriots' view was that the Islamic governments should revive true Islam that would in turn, pave way for the establishment of constitutional representative government and freedom which, though Islamic in origin, was manifested in the West at the time.

Arabism and regional patriotism (such as in Egypt or in the Levant) mixed and gained predominance over
Ottomanism among some Arabs in
Syria
Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
and
Lebanon
Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...
.
Ibrahim al-Yaziji, a Lebanese Christian philosopher, called for the Arabs to "recover their lost ancient vitality and throw off the yoke of the Turks" in 1868. A secret society promoting this goal was formed in the late 1870s, with al-Yazigi as a member. The group placed placards in
Beirut
Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...
calling for a rebellion against the Ottomans. Meanwhile, other Lebanese and
Damascus
Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
-based notables, mostly Muslims, formed similar secret movements, although they differed as Christian groups who disfavoured Arabism called for a completely independent Lebanon while the Muslim Arab societies generally promoted an autonomous
Greater Syria still under Ottoman rule.
[Khalidi, p. 8.]
As early as 1870, Syrian Christian writer
Francis Marrash distinguished the notion of fatherland from that of nation; when applying the latter to
Greater Syria, he pointed to the role played by language, besides customs and belief in common interests, in defining national identity. This distinction between fatherland and nation was also made by Hasan al-Marsafi in 1881. By the beginning of the 20th century, groups of Muslim Arabs embraced an Arab nationalist "self-view" that would provide the basis of the Arab nationalist ideology of the 20th century.
This new version of Arab patriotism was directly influenced by the Islamic modernism and revivalism of
Muhammad Abduh, the
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
ian Muslim scholar, and
Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Iranian political activist. They both shared their thoughts on reform for Islamic societies by publishing in the journal ''
al-Urwah al-Wuthqa''. Abduh believed the Arabs' Muslim ancestors bestowed "rationality on mankind and created the essentials of modernity," borrowed by the West. Thus, while Europe advanced from adopting the modernist ideals of true Islam, the Muslims failed, corrupting and abandoning true Islam.
Al-Afghani blamed a division between Muslims on European influence. He thus advocated for pan-Muslim unity as a project to revitalize Islam as a cohesive force against the Western Colonialism,
and argued that new interpretations of Islam were needed to confront questions posed by modernity. Their followers would create their own magazines and political parties to develop these ideas. Abduh influenced modern Arab nationalism in particular, because the revival of true Islam's ancestors (who were Arabs) would also become the revival of Arab culture and the restoration of the Arab position as the leaders of the Islamic world. One of Abduh's followers,
Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, openly declared that the Ottoman Empire should be both Turkish and Arab, with the latter exercising religious and cultural leadership. due to their historical role in the
early Muslim community.
Rise of modern Arab nationalism
In 1911, Arab intellectuals and politicians from throughout the Levant formed
al-Fatat ("the Young Arab Society"), an Arab nationalist secret society and club, in Paris. Its stated aim was "raising the level of the Arab nation to the level of modern nations." In the first few years of its existence, al-Fatat called for greater autonomy within a unified Ottoman state rather than Arab independence from the empire. Al-Fatat hosted the
Arab Congress of 1913 in Paris, the purpose of which was to discuss desired reforms with other dissenting individuals from the Arab world. They also requested that Arab conscripts to the Ottoman army not be required to serve in non-Arab regions except in time of war. However, as the Ottoman authorities cracked down on the organization's activities and members, al-Fatat went underground and demanded the complete independence and unity of the Arab provinces.
[Choueiri, pp.166–168.]
Nationalist individuals became more prominent during the waning years of Ottoman authority, but the idea of Arab nationalism had virtually no impact on the majority of Arabs as they considered themselves loyal subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The British, for their part, incited the
Sharif of Mecca to launch the
Arab Revolt during the First World War. The Ottomans were defeated and the rebel forces, loyal to the Sharif's son
Faysal ibn al-Husayn entered Damascus in 1918. By now, Faysal along with many Iraqi intellectuals and military officers had joined al-Fatat which would form the backbone of the newly created Arab state that consisted of much of the Levant and the
Hejaz
Hejaz is a Historical region, historical region of the Arabian Peninsula that includes the majority of the western region of Saudi Arabia, covering the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif and Al Bahah, Al-B ...
.
Damascus became the coordinating center of the Arab nationalist movement as it was seen as the birthplace of the ideology, the seat of Faysal—the first Arab "sovereign" after nearly 400 years of Turkish suzerainty—and because the nationalists of the entire Mashreq region were familiar with it. Nonetheless,
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
,
Beirut
Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...
, and
Baghdad
Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...
remained significant bases of support. Following the creation of Faysal's state, a serious tension within the Arab nationalist movement became visible; the conflict between the ideology's highest ideal of forming a single independent unit comprising all countries that shared the Arabic language and heritage, and the tendency to give precedence to local ambitions.
[Choueiri, pp.171–173.]
To further tensions, a rift formed between the older nationalist members of various Syrian urban-class families and the generally younger nationalists who became close to Faysal—his Hejazi troops, Iraqi and Syrian military officers, and Palestinian and Syrian intellectuals. The older guard was mainly represented by
Rida Pasha al-Rikabi, who served as Faysal's prime minister, while the younger guard did not have one particular leader.
However, the youth within al-Fatat founded the
Arab Independence Party ("al-Istiqlal") in February 1919. Its goal was to achieve unity and complete Arab independence. Prominent members included
Izzat Darwaza and
Shukri al-Quwatli. Centered in Damascus with branches in various cities throughout the Levant, al-Istiqlal received political and financial support from Faysal, but relied on the inner circle of al-Fatat to survive.
During the war, Britain had been a major sponsor of Arab nationalist thought and ideology, primarily as a weapon to use against the power of the Ottoman Empire. Although the Arab forces were promised a state that included much of the Arabian Peninsula and the
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent () is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, together with northern Kuwait, south-eastern Turkey, and western Iran. Some authors also include ...
, the secret
Sykes–Picot Agreement between Britain and France provided for the territorial division of much of that region between the two imperial powers. During the interwar years and the
British Mandate period, when Arab lands were under French and British control, Arab nationalism became an important anti-imperial opposition movement against European rule.
Growth of the movement
A number of Arab revolts against the European powers took place following the establishment of the British and French mandates. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, a new form of colonial control arose. As the
mandate system allowed for Britain and France to continue their presence in the region. Resentment of British rule culminated in the
Iraqi Revolt of 1920. The uprising which was carried out by the urban population as well as the rural tribes of Iraq ended in 1921. The British drastically changed their policy in Iraq afterwards. Although the mandate was still in place officially, the British role was virtually reduced to an advisory one. In 1925, the
Druze
The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...
of southern Syria under the leadership of
Sultan al-Atrash revolted against French rule. The revolt subsequently spread throughout Syria, particularly in Damascus where an uprising by the citizens took place. The French responded by systematically bombarding the city, resulting in thousands of deaths. The revolt was put down by the end of the year, but it is credited with forcing the French to take more steps to ensure Syrian independence. In
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
, resentment of British hegemony led to wide-scale
revolts across the country in 1919. As a result of three-year negotiations following the uprising, the British agreed to allow Egypt's official independence in 1922, but their military still held great influence in the country. The political leaders of the Egyptian revolution espoused
Egyptian nationalism, rather than an Arab nationalist alternative.
The relative independence of Egypt, Iraq,
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...
and
North Yemen
North Yemen () is a term used to describe the Kingdom of Yemen (1918-1962), the Yemen Arab Republic (1962-1990), and the regimes that preceded them and exercised sovereignty over that region of Yemen. Its capital was Sanaa from 1918 to 1948 an ...
encouraged Arab nationalists to put forward programs of action against colonial powers in the region. According to historian Youssef Choueiri, the "first public glimmerings" of a pan-Arab approach occurred in 1931, during the convention of
World Islamic Congress in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
which highlighted Muslim fears of the increasing growth of
Zionism
Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
in Palestine. Arab delegates held a separate conference and for the first time delegates from North Africa, Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula and the Fertile Crescent convened together to discuss Arab matters. A
pan-Arabist covenant was proclaimed centering on three main articles: the Arab countries form an integral and indivisible whole. Hence the Arab nation does not accept or recognize the divisions of whatever nature to which it has been subjected, all efforts in every Arab country are to be directed towards the achievement of total independence within one single unity. Every endeavor which confines political activities to local or regional issues is to be fought against, and since colonialism is, in all its forms and manifestations, incompatible with the dignity and paramount aims of the Arab nation, the Arab nation rejects it and will resist it with all the means at its disposal.
The
Association of Algerian Muslim Ulama founded in 1931 was a major Islamist and Arab nationalist movement in
French Algeria
French Algeria ( until 1839, then afterwards; unofficially ; ), also known as Colonial Algeria, was the period of History of Algeria, Algerian history when the country was a colony and later an integral part of France. French rule lasted until ...
. Its motto was "Islam is our religion, Algeria is our homeland, Arabic is our language", and it emphasized on the Arab-Islamic national identity of Algeria, becoming the strongest defender of Arab and Muslim culture and a major provider of education in Arabic. Its founder
Abdelhamid ibn Badis identified Islam, Arabism, and nationalism as the three main components of the Algerian national character distinct from France, while his fellow 'alim Ahmad Tawfiq al-Madani (1889–1983) wrote extensive historical writings in Arabic celebrating the Muslim and Arab ancestors of Algeria. The association also attracted Algerian public attention to what was happening in
Mandatory Palestine
Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine.
After ...
, describing the events in Palestine in 1936 as an "insult to all Muslim countries and a degradation of Arabism" and events in 1947 as "test set up by God in order to examine the Muslims and the Arabs' faith". It also stressed the view that Palestine belongs to all Arabs and not only to
Palestinians
Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine.
*: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenou ...
.
In 1955, it joined the Arab nationalist
National Liberation Front's insurgency against France in the
Algerian War
The Algerian War (also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence) ''; '' (and sometimes in Algeria as the ''War of 1 November'') was an armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (Algeri ...
.
[ Frank Tachau (1994) ''Political parties of the Middle East and North Africa'', Greenwood Press, pp4–5]
Plans for a near-future conference were made, but never came into play due to Faysal's death in 1933 (delegates chose Faysal of Iraq to be their patron and he agreed to provide moral and material support for the movement) and fierce British opposition. However, the
Arab Independence Party was formed by Palestinian and Iraqi activists from al-Fatat as a direct result of the Jerusalem conference on 13 August 1932. Most of the AIP's activities were centered in the Palestinian political field, but the party also worked towards achieving Arab unity and solidarity as a means to strengthen Arab resistance against the British Mandate in Palestine and increased Jewish settlement occurring there. In August 1933, the
League of Nationalist Action (LNA) was founded in
Lebanon
Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...
by Western-educated professional civil service groups with the aims of creating a common Arab market and industrial base as well as the abolishment of customs barriers between the Arab countries. By proposing agrarian reforms to limit the power of landowners, abolishing what they considered "
feudalism
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of struc ...
" and promoting the growth of an industry, the LNA sought to undermine the
absentee landlord
In economics, an absentee landlord is a person who owns and rents out a profit-earning property, but does not live within the property's local economic region. The term "absentee ownership" was popularised by economist Thorstein Veblen's 1923 b ...
s in the Levant who tended to encourage local nationalism and were open to working with European authorities or Jewish land purchasers. The LNA enjoyed a level of popularity throughout the 1930s, but did not survive into the 1940s.
Following the killing of the Syrian Arab guerrilla leader
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam by British forces in
Ya'bad, Arab-Jewish tensions in Palestine reached a climax.
Anti-Zionist sentiments reached a boiling point on 15 April 1936, when an armed group of Arabs killed a Jewish civilian after intercepting his car near the village of
Bal'a. After Jews retaliated by killing two Arab farmers near
Jaffa
Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...
, this sparked an
Arab revolt in Palestine. The AIP along with Palestinian notables selected popular leader and
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem,
Amin al-Husseini to lead the uprising.
[Nafi, pp. 192–193.] The
Arab Higher Committee (AHC), a national committee bringing together Arab factions in Palestine, was established to coordinate the uprising. To protest increased
Jewish immigration, a
general strike
A general strike is a strike action in which participants cease all economic activity, such as working, to strengthen the bargaining position of a trade union or achieve a common social or political goal. They are organised by large coalitions ...
was declared and a political, economic, and social boycott of Jews soon ensued.

The events in Palestine followed similar anti-colonial activities in Egypt, Syria and Algeria which helped inspire the uprising. In Egypt, week-long anti-British demonstrations had eventually resulted in the restoration of the Egyptian constitution while in Syria, a general strike held in January–February 1936 led to major negotiations for an independence deal with the French government.
The British took a firm stance against the nationalist revolt in Palestine, dissolving the AHC forcing al-Husayni into exile in Lebanon in 1937.
[Choueiri, p.97.] In Algeria, hostility towards the Jewish community saw an attack in
Constantine in the summer of 1934 in which a number of Jews were killed, in response to the events in Palestine.
Al-Husayni, who leaned more towards
Palestinian nationalism
Palestinian nationalism is the national movement of the Palestinian people that espouses Palestinian self-determination, self-determination and sovereignty over the region of Palestine.de Waart, 1994p. 223 Referencing Article 9 of ''The Pales ...
, was instrumental in organizing the pan-Arab
Bloudan Conference on 9 September 1937 in Syria which gathered 524 delegates from across the Arab world, although al-Husayni himself was not in attendance.
[Choueiri, p. 98.] According to author Adeeb Dawisha, although the uprising had been quelled by 1939, it greatly "contributed to the growth of Arab nationalist sentiment" and began the development of "solidarity" between Arab governments.
[Dawisha, p. 117.]
Meanwhile, a clandestine Arab nationalist society was formed in Iraq in 1938 which came to be known as Arab Nationalist Party (ANP). The ANP typically confined itself to influencing events and leaders in Iraq rather than taking the lead of a mass nationalist movement. King
Ghazi of Iraq was one such leader. Ghazi intended to build a strong Iraqi army and actively sought to annex
Kuwait
Kuwait, officially the State of Kuwait, is a country in West Asia and the geopolitical region known as the Middle East. It is situated in the northern edge of the Arabian Peninsula at the head of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to Iraq–Kuwait ...
. Many Arab nationalist politicians from Kuwait, who favored independence particularly after the discovery of oil there in 1938, were provided safe haven in Iraq after being repressed by the quasi-rulers of the
sheikhdom, the
Al Sabah family (Kuwait was still a British territory at the time). Ghazi died in a car accident in 1939, prompting a number of his army officers to allege the king was assassinated by British forces. That same year, al-Husayni arrived in Baghdad after escaping from Lebanon, giving a morale boost to the pan-Arab dimension in Iraqi politics. The prime minister at the time,
Nuri al-Said and the regent king
Abd al-Ilah, did not harbor the pan-Arabist sympathies Ghazi espoused.
Rashid Ali al-Gaylani succeeded al-Said as Prime Minister in March 1940 and took a neutral position regarding
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, opening dialogue with the German government which was at war with Britain. Under great pressure from the latter, al-Gaylani resigned on 31 January 1941 and al-Said took his place. The perceived British interjection in Iraq's internal affairs angered Arab nationalist officers in the army, leading a group of them to overthrow the government in April and install al-Gaylani as Prime Minister.
To counter a British military response to the coup, al-Gaylani enlisted the support of Germany, but the German military did not arrive to aid the Arab nationalist government. With pro-German
Vichy France
Vichy France (; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was a French rump state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II, established as a result of the French capitulation after the Battle of France, ...
having taken control of neighboring Syria, Britain reoccupied Iraq in May to prevent it from joining the
Axis powers
The Axis powers, originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis and also Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis, was the military coalition which initiated World War II and fought against the Allies of World War II, Allies. Its principal members were Nazi Ge ...
. By 1 June, al-Gaylani and al-Husayni fled to the country for Germany, while the army officers who carried out the coup were captured and executed.
Al-Husayni became
increasingly acquainted with
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
, the
Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
leader of Germany, and other Nazi officials and attempted to coordinate Nazi and Arab policies to solve what he believed was the "
Jewish problem" in Palestine. In one of the mufti's speeches he asked Arabs to unite and "kill the Jews wherever you find them."
Throughout World War II, the Nazi government, seeking to take advantage of widespread anti-imperialist feelings in the Middle East, had broadcast
antisemitic messages tailored to Arabic-speaking Muslims in the Middle East via radio.
[Herf, Jeffrey]
"Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World."
''Google Books''. 30 January 2013.
The conflict in Iraq provoked anger and frustration throughout the Arab world and the British acknowledged the rapid growth of Arab nationalist feeling among the Arab population,
large segments of which saw the events in Iraq as a valiant struggle against imperialism.
[Dawisha, p. 118.] British Foreign Secretary,
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1955 until his resignation in 1957.
Achi ...
, officially stated Britain's support of strong pan-Arab ties in a bid to ease anti-British sentiments in the region.
[Choueiri, p.99.] The events of the region influenced the creation of the Arab Union Club in Egypt in 1942 which called for developing stronger ties between Egypt and the Arab world. Branches were subsequently opened in Baghdad, Beirut, Jaffa and Damascus, and Egyptian Prime Minister
Mostafa el-Nahas adopted its platform, pledging to help protect "the interests and rights" of the "sister Arab nations" and explore the "question of Arab unity."
Establishment of the Arab League
Rivalry for the leadership of the Arab world developed mostly between the political establishments of Iraq and Egypt in the period following the failure of Rashid Ali coup. Eden's stated support for increased Arab ties encouraged Nuri al-Said of Iraq to propose his own plan for Arab unity in January 1943, dubbed the "
Fertile Crescent Union." The plan recognized the linguistic, cultural and economic ties between the states of the
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent () is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, together with northern Kuwait, south-eastern Turkey, and western Iran. Some authors also include ...
region as well as the differences between their inhabitants. It sought to unify those states in a stage-based process whereby the initial stage would see Syria, Transjordan, Palestine and Lebanon unite with limited autonomy given to the Jews in Palestine and special rights for the Christians in Lebanon.
[Dawisha, p. 119.] Afterward the
Levant
The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...
ine state and Iraq would form an "Arab League," to which other Arab states could join, that would oversee matters of defense, foreign policy, customs, currency and the safeguarding of minorities. The proposal reflected a combination of factors, namely the expansionist ambitions of the Hashemites, the attempt by Iraq's political establishment to secure the mantle of Arab leadership in their rivalry with Egypt and a genuine embrace of Arab identity by Iraq's leaders.
The Egyptian government of
Nahas Pasha launched a rival initiative for establishing closer inter-Arab relations, and sent delegations to several Arab states. Influential Arab nationalist figures in the country sought to emphasize Egypt's Arab character, the most prominent of them,
Abdul Rahman al-Azzam, even writing "Egypt was an Arab country before Christ." The apparent Egyptian embrace of Arabism was met with general Arab excitement at the popular level and Pasha's efforts gained more traction among the various Arab governments than al-Said's Fertile Crescent proposal. Reasons for this ranged from the antipathy of the
Saudi royal family and the Damascus political establishment to the leadership ambitions of the rival Hashemite family to the belief by Lebanon's Maronite Christian community that Egypt's plan would not require conceding future independence. Between 25 September-8 October 1944, the leaders of Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Transjordan, Yemen and the Palestinian Arab community convened in
Alexandria
Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...
, Egypt in a meeting hosted by the Egyptian government which ended with an agreement known as the "
Alexandria Protocol."
Peak under Egyptian leadership

After the Second World War,
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian military officer and revolutionary who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 a ...
, the leader of Egypt, was a significant player in the rise of Arab nationalism.
Opposed to the British control of the Suez Canal Zone and concerned at Egypt becoming a Cold War battleground Nasser pushed for a collective Arab security pact within the framework of the
Arab League
The Arab League (, ' ), officially the League of Arab States (, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world. The Arab League was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945, initially with seven members: Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt, Kingdom of Iraq, ...
. A key aspect of this was the need for economic aid that was not dependent on peace with Israel and the establishment of U.S. or British military bases within Arab countries. Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and directly challenged the dominance of the Western powers in the region. At the same time he opened Egypt up as a Cold War zone by receiving aid and arms shipments from the Soviet bloc countries that were not dependent on treaties, bases and peace accords. However, because of the connotations for Cold War dominance of the region, Egypt also received aid from the US, who sought to promote the emerging Arab nationalism as a barrier to
communism
Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...
.
Gamal Abdel Nasser was a major supporter of the Algerian independence movement, whose mixture of Arab nationalism and revolution appealed to the Arabs in North Africa.
He provided financial, diplomatic and military support to the
National Liberation Front, and based the
Algerian provisional government in Cairo.
This played a major role in France's decision to wage war against him during the 1956
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also known as the Second Arab–Israeli War, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so w ...
. Albert Camus argued that
Algerian nationalism was closely tied to
Nasserism
Nasserism ( ) is an Arab nationalism, Arab nationalist and Arab socialism, Arab socialist List of political ideologies, political ideology based on the thinking of Gamal Abdel Nasser, one of the two principal leaders of the Egyptian Revolution ...
and Pan-Arabism in an essay titled 'Algeria 1958'. Algerian president
Houari Boumédiène
Houari Boumédiène (; born Mohammed ben Brahim Boukharouba; 23 August 1932 – 27 December 1978) was an Algerian military officer and politician who was the list of heads of state of Algeria, second head of state of independent Algeria from 196 ...
, who pursued
Arab socialist and Pan-Arabist policies, drafted a new Algerian constitution in 1976 which declared "the unity of the Arab people is written in the community of the destinies of these people. When there will be the conditions for a unity based on the liberation of the popular masses, Algeria will engage itself in the promotion of the formulas of union, integration or fusion that may fully respond to the legitimate and deep aspirations of the Arab people". Like his predecessor
Ahmed Ben Bella, he imposed
Arab socialism
Arab socialism () is a political ideology based on the combination of pan-Arabism or Arab nationalism and socialism. The term "Arab socialism" was coined by Michel Aflaq, the principal founder of Ba'athism and the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Part ...
as the state ideology and declared Islam the state religion, however he was more assertive than Ben Bella in carrying out
Arabization
Arabization or Arabicization () is a sociology, sociological process of cultural change in which a non-Arab society becomes Arabs, Arab, meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Arabic, Arabic language, Arab cultu ...
to reverse French colonization, especially between 1970 and 1977.
The question of Palestine and opposition to
Zionism
Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
became a rallying point for Arab nationalism from both a religious perspective and a military perspective. The fact that the Zionists were Jewish promoted a religious flavor to the xenophobic rhetoric and strengthened Islam as a defining feature of Arab nationalism. The humiliating defeat in the
1948 Arab–Israeli War strengthened the Arabs' resolve to unite in favor of a
pan-Arab nationalist ideal.
With the revival of the
Palestinian nationalist movement, a debate circled between those who believed that pan-Arab unity would bring about destruction of Israel (the view advocated by the
Arab Nationalist Movement) or whether the destruction of Israel would bring about pan-Arab unity (the view advocated by
Fatah).
Pan-Arabism was initially a
secular
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin , or or ), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian hi ...
movement. Arab nationalists generally rejected religion as a main element in political identity, and promoted the unity of Arabs regardless of sectarian identity. However, the fact that most Arabs were Muslims was used by some as an important building block in creating a new Arab national identity. An example of this was
Michel Aflaq
Michel Aflaq (, ; 9 January 1910 – 23 June 1989) was a Syrian philosopher, sociology, sociologist and Arab nationalism, Arab nationalist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism and its political movement; he ...
, founder along with
Salah al-Din al-Bitar and
Zaki al-Arsuzi of the Ba'ath Party in Syria in the 1940s.
Aflaq, thought himself a Christian, viewed Islam as a testament to the "Arab genius", and once said "Muhammed was the epitome of all the Arabs. So let all the Arabs today be Muhammed." Since the Arabs had reached their greatest glories through the expansion of Islam, Islam was seen as a universal message as well as an expression of secular genius on the part of the Arab peoples. Islam had given the Arabs a "glorious past", which was very different from the "shameful present". In effect, the troubles of the Arab presence were because the Arabs had diverged from their "eternal and perfect symbol", Islam. The Arabs needed to have a "resurrection" (''ba'ath'' in Arabic). After the Ba'athist military coups in Iraq and Syria in the 1960s, the Ba'athists "contributed very little to the development of all-Arab nationalism, which was its original ''raison d'etre''."
Another example of the occasional mingled of Arab nationalism and
Islamic revival
Islamic revival ('' '', lit., "regeneration, renewal"; also ', "Islamic awakening") refers to a revival of the Islamic religion, usually centered around enforcing sharia. A leader of a revival is known in Islam as a '' mujaddid''.
Within the Is ...
ist sentiment was from
Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the earliest and largest revivalist organization, the
Muslim Brotherhood. While in theory Islamic revivalists (for example
Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Ibrahim Husayn Shadhili Qutb (9 October 190629 August 1966) was an Egyptian political theorist and revolutionary who was a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
As the author of 24 books, with around 30 books unpublished for differe ...
) were implacably opposed to nationalism as a European pollution intended to weaken Islamic unity, al-Banna "had regarded the transfer of power to non-Arabs after the first four '
Rightfully Guided' caliphs as the true reason for the decline of Islam."
[quoted in ]
Meanwhile, King
Faisal of Saudi Arabia
Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (; Najdi Arabic pronunciation: ; 14 April 1906 – 25 March 1975) was King of Saudi Arabia from 2 November 1964 until #Assassination and aftermath, his assassination in 1975. Before his ascension, he served as Cr ...
sought to counter the influences of Arab nationalism and communism in the region by promoting
pan-Islamism as an alternative. He called for the establishment of the Muslim World League, visiting several Muslim countries to advocate the idea. He also engaged in a propaganda and media war with Nasser.
Women and nationalism
Women were active participants in the nationalist mobilizations. Arab nationalism became an opportunity for women to appear in public spaces –which were traditionally reserved for men, not only as protesters but also as founders of their own unions and organizations. One example is
Hoda Sha'rawi, who marched with other women during the 1919 revolution against the British and would then create the
Egyptian Feminist Union. (Male) Islamic modernists Muhammad Abduh and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, along with Egyptian judge and intellectual
Qasim Amine, are considered precursors of women's ideological discussion due to their reflections on the role of women in Islamic reforms. However, women themselves also contributed to the intellectual foundations of the ideology by publishing articles where they made demands, such as the expansion of education, in journals dedicated to Arab history and culture.
Hind Nawfal established the first Arab women's magazine, ''
Al-Fatat'', in Egypt. This title became the foremother of a subsequent group of publications that came to be known as women's journals.
In this context, it has been argued that women's participation was used as an ideological instrument by Arab nationalism. They were considered "bearers of the nation", because they not only had the biological capability to give birth to future generations, but their own preparation signified a better education for their children. The former was a consequence of the creation of a "maternalist frame" for national and historical symbols, which women themselves adopted to construct their activism. Nermin Allam proposes the term "domestication of female public bravery" to refer to how women's participation has been reduced in the imaginary of the struggle to constrain their questioning of hierarchies.
Women were important to the movement in relation to the family unit. But women's presence in the nationalist pursuit was crucial considering that "building a nation-state required the mobilization of the entire population, both male and female". The former can also be seen in Palestine, where women partaken in a demonstration in opposition to the heavy flow of Zionist immigrants in 1921, or with their gradual participation in Algeria's War of Independence as nurses, cooks, and even carrying bombs.
[Pepicelli, "Rethinking Gender in Arab Nationalism", p. 205.] In July 1957,
Djamila Bouhired was tried for allegedly bombing a cafe, which killed 11 civilians inside. Moreover, female political involvement has been considered by several authors as a necessary dimension of Arab nationalism, because it is, in essence, a "gendered discourse". The community that was imagined by nationalist groups was largely dependent on the status they assigned to women: modernist nationalists considered their inclusion in the public space as a necessary measure to achieve modernity, while conservative nationalists would vindicate their traditional roles as symbols of Islamic culture.
To modernists between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, the status of women in Arab society was seen as a symptom of backwardness. Consequently, the reinterpretation of Islamic texts proposed with the revival of Arab culture also included the question of women. This was possible before nationalism became directly opposed to the European model. In this sense, the connection of the "ideal Arab woman" to the conceptions of modernity made women "markers of cultural borders". Consistent with this logic would be the discussion on the unveiling of women, which came to be used as a symbol of progress in the early twentieth century by Egypt. Additionally, Tunisian women protested its usage for the first time during the 1920s and the 1930s. However, this image "...was not much different from that of a tractor, an industrial complex, or a new railroad in symbolizing the modern, the development, the progress";
[Pepicelli, "Rethinking Gender in Arab Nationalism", p. 210] its value was not related to any notion of emancipation.
The question of women became more complex to deal with once the requirement of women's political involvement needed to coexist with the continuity of tradition. When Arab nationalism directly challenged Western cultural influence, women's compliance with Arab values was key to distinguish themselves from Europe, or not to become Western-like. The former can be exemplified by how the use of the veil was reintroduced as a nationalist symbol during the
Algerian War of Independence
The Algerian War (also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence) ''; '' (and sometimes in Algeria as the ''War of 1 November'') was an armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (Algeri ...
, in response to the strong French campaign against its use during the 1930s.
Some authors argue there is a link between opposition to Westernization and the strengthening of domestic roles to protect Arab identity. Nadje Al-Ali and Beth Baron call this a process of ''gendering of nationalism'', where the Arab nationalist discourse replicated the most conservative conceptions of womanhood. Following this logic, the laws that regulated the private sphere became stricter, or tightened. Conversely, this assertion has been nuanced by Deniz Kandiyoti, under the argument that the relationship between Islam and women's rights is "politically convergent" and should not be generalized nor simplified without a proper study of each case.
Because of this, the expansion of women's political and economic rights was achieved under nationalist regimes, but it was deficient when it came to questioning their domestic limitations, such as polygamy, divorce, and the minimum age for marriage. In Egypt, the 1956 Constitution granted women the right to vote for the first time in history, as well as their right to education and employment. Nasser also guaranteed economic rights to the working class and the peasantry regardless of gender. The Algerian constitution also acknowledged equal rights to all citizens, but until 1984 no changes were made in personal status codes, and social attitudes toward women receiving education beyond the primary level or going to work were restrictive. Associated is the phenomenon of
state-feminism, which refers to the state's co-option of women's agenda to gain political legitimacy and constrict female mobilization. This was a strategy used by Nasser, who banned the creation of autonomous organizations and formulated women's demands as social welfare issues, leading to a recession of Egyptian feminist activism.
Decline
After the defeat of the Arab coalition by Israel during the 1967
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
—which the reigning Arab nationalist leader Nasser had dubbed ''al-Ma‘raka al-Masiriya'' (the battle of destiny)—the Arab nationalist movement is said to have suffered an "irreversible" slide towards "political marginality".
From the mid-1960s onward, the movement was further weakened by factional splits and ideological infighting. The formerly pro-Nasser
Arab Nationalist Movement, publicly abandoned
Nasserism
Nasserism ( ) is an Arab nationalism, Arab nationalist and Arab socialism, Arab socialist List of political ideologies, political ideology based on the thinking of Gamal Abdel Nasser, one of the two principal leaders of the Egyptian Revolution ...
in favor of
Marxism–Leninism
Marxism–Leninism () is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the History of communism, communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist gov ...
and fell apart soon after. In 1966, the
Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party split into rival factions based in
Baghdad
Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...
and
Damascus
Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
, respectively.
The historian Adeed Dawisha observes the decline in popularity was, in part, due to the elimination of many of the political factors that stoked nationalist passion in the Arab world during the 1950s and early 1960s, while
Fred Halliday cites the “failure of the secular state, in its economic, social, and state-building roles, as well as in foreign policies, that led to the rejection of nationalism, and associated ideas of socialism and revolution, in much of the Arab world”.
Other factors given for the decline include: regional attachments such as Iraqi president
Abdul-Karim Qasim's "Iraq first" policy, suspicion of Arab unity by minority groups such as
Kurds
Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...
in Iraq who were non-Arab, or
Shia Arabs in Iraq who feared Arab nationalism was actually "a
Sunni
Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...
project" to establish "Sunni hegemony", the
Islamic revival
Islamic revival ('' '', lit., "regeneration, renewal"; also ', "Islamic awakening") refers to a revival of the Islamic religion, usually centered around enforcing sharia. A leader of a revival is known in Islam as a '' mujaddid''.
Within the Is ...
, which grew as Arab nationalism declined, and whose Islamist adherents were very hostile towards nationalism in general, believing it had no place in Islam, and lack of interest by the movement in
pluralism,
separation of powers
The separation of powers principle functionally differentiates several types of state (polity), state power (usually Legislature#Legislation, law-making, adjudication, and Executive (government)#Function, execution) and requires these operat ...
,
freedom of political expression and other
democratic concepts which might have "resuscitated" the ideology in its moment of weakness.
However, Halliday notes how many ideas and goals of the emerging Islamist movements resembled, and even derived from, the programmes of the earlier, secular nationalists. He says, “the Islamist movements were beneficiaries and inheritors of the secular nationalist agenda”.
In the 21st century, following the
Arab Spring
The Arab Spring () was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings, and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began Tunisian revolution, in Tunisia ...
, support for Arab and even most local nationalist movements declined further. Dawisha states the "irrelevance of secular nationalism to the concerns of the twenty-first century paved the way for increasingly violent competition between the state and political Islam for the loyalty, as well as for the hearts and minds of the Arab citizen", observing Arab nationalism has no role in this struggle.
Attempts at unity

In the 1940s, rulers such as
Abdullah I of Jordan and
Nuri al-Said of Iraq sought to create an expanded Arab empire constructed out of the smaller nation-states that had been created in the mandate period. Abdullah's dream was to be king of a
Greater Syria while as-Said's dream was for a
Fertile Crescent Federation. These aspirations, however, were unpopular and met with suspicion in the countries they sought to conquer. The creation of the Arab League and its insistence on the territorial integrity and respect for sovereignty of each member state, the
assassination of Abdullah, and the
14 July Revolution weakened the political feasibility of these ideas.
[Sela, 153]
During much of the 20th century, the rivalry between Syria and Nasser in Egypt for who would lead the union undermined the effort of forming a united Arab state. In 1958,
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
and
Syria
Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
temporarily joined to create the
United Arab Republic
The United Arab Republic (UAR; ) was a sovereign state in the Middle East from 1958 to 1971. It was initially a short-lived political union between Republic of Egypt (1953–1958), Egypt (including Occupation of the Gaza Strip by the United Ara ...
. It was accompanied by attempts to include
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
and
North Yemen in the union. This very exercise, while fostering Egypt's position at the centre of Arab politics, led to the weakening of Syria.
With the
14 July Revolution taking place in Iraq the same year, Western powers feared the fallouts of a powerful Arab nationalism in the region. Foreign powers were not only concerned about the possible spread of such revolutionary movements in other Arab states, but also worried about losing the control and monopoly over the region's natural oil resources. However, due to discontent over the hegemony of Egypt and after a coup in Syria that introduced a more radical government to power, the United Arab Republic collapsed in 1961. The term ''United Arab Republic'' continued to be used in Egypt until 1971, after the death of Nasser.
Another unsuccessful attempt at union occurred in 1963. That year the Arab nationalist Ba'ath Party came to power in Syria and Iraq and talks were held on uniting the two countries with Egypt. On 17 April an agreement to unite the countries was signed, but Ba'ath leaders complained of what they considered Egyptian president Nasser's "patronizing, bullying tone" and his insistence on a single centralized party structure under his leadership.
In Syria, pro-Nasserists were purged from the Syrian military and cabinet. In response, large pro-Nasser riots erupted in
Damascus
Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
and
Aleppo
Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...
but were crushed with 50 rioters killed. A pro-Nasser coup attempt on 18 July 1963 in Syria also ended unsuccessfully. Hundreds of people were killed or wounded in an attempt to take over the Damascus radio station and army headquarters, and 27 rebel officers were summarily executed. Nasser then formally withdrew from the union agreement, denouncing the Syrian Ba'athists as "fascists and murderers".
[Seale, Patrick, ''Asad, the Struggle for the Middle East'', University of California Press, 1989, p.83]
In 1964, Egypt, Iraq and North Yemen formed a
Unified Political Command in order to prepare the gradual merger in a new ''United Arab Republic'', however, both projects failed in 1966 and 1967. In 1971 and 1972
Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (20 October 2011) was a Libyan military officer, revolutionary, politician and political theorist who ruled Libya from 1969 until Killing of Muammar Gaddafi, his assassination by Libyan Anti-Gaddafi ...
attempted to unite Libya, Egypt, Sudan and Syria to form the
Federation of Arab Republics. This loose union lasted until 1977 when it split due to political and territorial disputes between the republics' leadership. In 1974, Muammar Gaddafi and
Habib Bourguiba
Habib Bourguiba (3 August 19036 April 2000) was a Tunisian politician and statesman who served as the Head of Government of Tunisia, prime minister of the Kingdom of Tunisia from 1956 to 1957, and then as the first president of Tunisia from 1 ...
attempted their two nations of Libya and Tunisia to form the
Arab Islamic Republic. The plan was rejected by Bourgiba due to his realization of the unity of the
Maghreb
The Maghreb (; ), also known as the Arab Maghreb () and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb al ...
states. This would later become the
Arab Maghreb Union.
In October 1978,
Iraqi President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr began working closely with
Syrian President Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad (6 October 193010 June 2000) was a Syrian politician and military officer who was the president of Syria from 1971 until Death and state funeral of Hafez al-Assad, his death in 2000. He was previously the Prime Minister of Syria ...
to foil the
Camp David Accords. They signed a charter in Baghdad for Joint National Action which provided for the "closest form of unity ties" including "complete military unity" as well as "economic, political and cultural unification".
[Ma'oz, 153] An agreement to unify the two states was to come into effect in July 1979. However,
Iraqi Vice President Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...
was fearful of losing his power to Assad (who was supposed to become the deputy leader in the new union) and forced al-Bakr into retirement under threat of violence.
[McDonald, 128] Although unity talks did continue between Assad and Saddam after July 1979, but Assad rejected Iraqi demands for a full merger between the two states and for the immediate deployment of Iraqi troops into Syria. Instead Assad, perhaps fearful of Iraqi domination and a new war with Israel, advocated a step-by-step approach. The unity talks were eventually suspended indefinitely after an alleged discovery of a Syrian plot to overthrow Saddam Hussein in November 1979.
Notable Arab nationalists
*
Michel Aflaq
Michel Aflaq (, ; 9 January 1910 – 23 June 1989) was a Syrian philosopher, sociology, sociologist and Arab nationalism, Arab nationalist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism and its political movement; he ...
*
Hussein bin Ali, King of Hejaz
*
George Antonius
George Habib Antonius, Order of the British Empire, CBE (hon.) (; October 19, 1891May 21, 1942) was a Lebanese people, Lebanese author and diplomat who settled in Jerusalem. He was one of the first historians of Arab nationalism. Born in Deir a ...
*
Abdul Rahman Arif
*
Abdul Salam Arif
*
Zaki al-Arsuzi
*
Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad (6 October 193010 June 2000) was a Syrian politician and military officer who was the president of Syria from 1971 until Death and state funeral of Hafez al-Assad, his death in 2000. He was previously the Prime Minister of Syria ...
*
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
*
Allal al-Fassi
*
Ahmed Ben Bella
*
Salah al-Din al-Bitar
*
Izzat Darwaza
*
Faisal I of Iraq
Faisal I bin Hussein bin Ali Al-Hashemi (, ''Fayṣal al-Awwal bin Ḥusayn bin ʻAlī al-Hāshimī''; 20 May 1885 – 8 September 1933) was King of Iraq from 23 August 1921 until his death in 1933. A member of the Hashemites, Hashemite family, ...
*
Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (20 October 2011) was a Libyan military officer, revolutionary, politician and political theorist who ruled Libya from 1969 until Killing of Muammar Gaddafi, his assassination by Libyan Anti-Gaddafi ...
*
Rashid Ali al-Gaylani
*
Ghazi of Iraq
*
George Habash
*
Sati' al-Husri
*
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...
*
Amin al-Husseini
*
Salah Jadid
*
Kamal Jumblatt
*
Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi
*
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian military officer and revolutionary who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 a ...
*
Gaafar Nimeiry
*
Adnan Pachachi
*
Samih al-Qasim
*
Shukri al-Quwatli
*
Ameen Rihani
*
Hamdeen Sabahi
*
Jurji Zaydan
*
Constantin Zureiq
See also
*
Pan-Arabism
Pan-Arabism () is a Pan-nationalism, pan-nationalist ideology that espouses the unification of all Arabs, Arab people in a single Nation state, nation-state, consisting of all Arab countries of West Asia and North Africa from the Atlantic O ...
*
Arab socialism
Arab socialism () is a political ideology based on the combination of pan-Arabism or Arab nationalism and socialism. The term "Arab socialism" was coined by Michel Aflaq, the principal founder of Ba'athism and the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Part ...
*
Ba'athism
*
Coptic nationalism
*
Iraqi nationalism
*
Jordanian nationalism
*
Lebanese nationalism
*
Libyan nationalism
*
Nasserism
Nasserism ( ) is an Arab nationalism, Arab nationalist and Arab socialism, Arab socialist List of political ideologies, political ideology based on the thinking of Gamal Abdel Nasser, one of the two principal leaders of the Egyptian Revolution ...
*
Palestinian nationalism
Palestinian nationalism is the national movement of the Palestinian people that espouses Palestinian self-determination, self-determination and sovereignty over the region of Palestine.de Waart, 1994p. 223 Referencing Article 9 of ''The Pales ...
*
Syrian nationalism
*
Tunisian nationalism
References
Bibliography
*Abu-'Uksa, Wael (2016)
Freedom in the Arab World: Concepts and Ideologies in Arabic Thought in the Nineteenth Century Cambridge University Press.
*
*
*
*
*
*
Hiro, Dilip. "Arab nationalism." ''Dictionary of the Middle East''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. pp. 24–25.
*
*
Karsh, Efraim. ''Arafat's War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest''. New York: Grove Press, 2003.
*Karsh, Efraim.
Islamic Imperialism: A History'. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
*
Sela, Avraham. "Arab Nationalism." ''The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East''. Ed. Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002. pp. 151–155
*
*
External links
"Islamic critique of Arab Nationalism"by Muhammad Yahya, ''Al-Tawhid'', Vol III, No. 2, 1986.
"Arab Nationalism: Mistaken Identity"by
Martin Kramer, ''Daedalus'', Summer 1993, pp. 171–206.
"Requiem for Arab Nationalism"by Adeed Dawisha, ''Middle East Quarterly'', Winter 2003, pp. 25–41.
"The Rise of Arab Nationalism in the Sudan"by Mohamed Hassan Fadlalla, Codex Online S.A.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arab Nationalism
Anti-Israeli sentiment in Africa
Anti-Israeli sentiment in Asia
Arab League