Islamic world
The Arab world refers to the set of countries that have Arabic as their official language (its standard variant, known as fusha, or one of its dialects). The Islamic world is the set of countries whose majority religion is Islam and which do not necessarily have to be Arab (Indonesia is the most populous Islamic country in the world and is not an Arab country, for example). Finally, Islamism refers to a political current that tries to establish political systems in Arab and Islamic countries whose values and principles are based on the Muslim religion.
The world Islamic is understood as all those countries that have Islam as the majority religion. They are a very diverse group of countries ranging from constitutional monarchies like Morocco and absolutist monarchies like Saudi Arabia to republics (democratic and dictatorial) like Turkey and Sudan and theocratic regimes like Iran. Among them there are countries that have Western-style laws inspired by Islam and countries whose only law is sharia. A major political problem in some of these countries is the rise of Islamic fundamentalism that challenges the legally established order and tries to forcefully implant a political system based on an archaic conception of the Muslim religion.
The Islamic world includes most of the countries where classical Islam was established during the Middle Ages and the Modern Age.
In Africa the countries: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan and Tunisia. As well as other African countries have a significant Muslim population such as: Cameroon, Gabon, Mozambique, Togo, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.
In America: Guyana and Suriname have a significant Muslim population but it is not a majority.
In Europe: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, the latter partly internationally recognized. Russia considers Islam an important part of the Russian cultural code, as well as being the second religion with the largest number of believers in the country.
In Asia: Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, India, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
The expression Dar al-Islam (Land of Islam) is similar, although it has a more demanding and religious value.
Persian Gulf tensions
The nuclear deal negotiated between the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Russia and Iran in 2015 opened a way for Iran to, in exchange for the lifting of all sanctions, renounce its ambition to seize nuclear weapons. Israel and Saudi Arabia opposed it as they feared that the thaw in relations with their rival would come at the cost of their interests.
In 2018, the United States withdrew from the international agreement on the Iranian program, which caused tensions to rise in the Persian Gulf.
On May 5, 2019, the United States announced the deployment of aircraft carriers and bombers in the Middle East, which led to Iran announcing on May 8 of the same year that it would stop limiting its reserves of heavy water and enriched uranium, a measure to which they had committed and complied according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2015 within the framework of the international agreement to limit the nuclear program.
Following the departure of Donald Trump from the White House, on November 29, 2021, negotiations between Iran and the European Union officially resumed. The meeting was attended by representatives from China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and Iran to continue discussions on the prospect of a possible return of the United States to the JCPOA and how to ensure the full and effective implementation of the agreement by all parts". In March 2022, State Department spokesman Ned Price stated that "we are close to a possible agreement, but we are not there yet" [1] but on March 11, 2022, negotiations to revive the 2015 deal that prevented Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon were temporarily suspended due to "external factors" just when the document was almost ready [2]
Tensions in the Maghreb
The Maghreb also suffers the consequences of Islamic fundamentalism. Egypt and Algeria have Islamic parties that have opted for terrorism as a way of bringing their positions to power.
Muammar al-Gaddafi's Libya has suffered diplomatic attacks from the United States on numerous occasions, after being accused of being an active center of international terrorism. It is a strange regime halfway between socialism and Islamism.
The most stable countries in the area are Tunisia and Morocco, although they have major economic problems. Morocco is the platform where all the people from African countries trying to enter Europe illegally meet. His adventure consists of crossing the border between Ceuta and Melilla or crossing the Strait of Gibraltar in small boats. Lately they have also ventured across the Atlantic to the Canary Islands. This attempt frequently ends in death, or repatriation at best. Another Moroccan conflict is on the southern border. Since 1975, when Spain abandoned the Sahara, Morocco has occupied the area against the Saharawi people. With this, the Polisario Front goes from fighting against Spain to fighting against Morocco. The Polisario Front claimed the right of self-determination for the Sahara. This right was recognized by the UN, but to date the referendum has not been called and the Polisario Front has fought against Morocco with guerrilla warfare.
In 2011 thousands of protesters in Yemen took to the streets of the capital, Sanaa, to demand the removal of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. In Egypt, the death toll from protests against President Hosni Mubarak totaled more than six. It all started in Tunisia, where after weeks of mobilizations against corruption, hunger and unemployment, popular pressure led to the removal of President Zine al-Abdine Ben Ali.
Islamic fundamentalism in North African countries
The problem of Islamic fundamentalism arose after the coup d'état by the Shiites in Iran in 1979. They organized the State taking sharia as law. Since then, throughout the Islamic world, movements have emerged seeking the establishment of this in their respective nations, whose most radical extreme in a rule of law occurs in Afghanistan with the government of the Taliban, as well as in part of Syria and Iraq. has seen applied in an extreme and authoritarian way by the ISIS.
The political situation in Islamic countries fluctuates widely between different nations, there being countries with failed or highly destabilized states such as Iraq, Libya or Afghanistan, monarchies where the sovereign is considered a descendant of Muhammad, as is the case of Jordan, Morocco or Saudi Arabia, presidential republics like Turkey, or parliamentary republics like Pakistan and Bangladesh. When Islamic fundamentalism is unable to gain power to organize the State according to its precepts, they opt for the terrorist solution, since their mission is to "spread good and prohibit evil" through jihad, holy war and seizure of political power to apply Islamic principles through the public institutions of the community. Islamic fundamentalists intend to seize political power to organize the entire society according to their understanding and religious beliefs, with a strict interpretation and application of the Qur'an. To do this, they have an instrument, jihad, which they interpret allows them to opt for terrorism to achieve their goals. Since organizing society in this way contravenes Human Rights, his claim meets with great resistance, especially in countries where Islam is not official or is not the predominant religion.
Egypt is a republic with free elections and a constitution (1971). European and world interests in Egypt are very large, not only because of tourism but, above all, because of the passage of the Suez Canal. Islamic fundamentalism made its appearance in the 1992 elections, but thanks to international pressure it made them fail. A terrorist campaign was unleashed against Western tourists, but the army has been controlling the situation and today they are controlled. Due to their terrorist option, they have not been allowed to stand in the elections again.
Libya is a republic, it was a dictatorship dominated by Muammar al-Gaddafi until the 2011 Libyan war that ended with his death. His dictatorship was a strange mixture of Islam, nationalism and socialism, typical of the cold war, in which dissent was not allowed. Currently, it is considered a failed state in perpetual internal conflict.
Tunisia is a republic. During the '70s and '80s it was a Libyan-style socialist Islamic state. In 1989 free elections are held. The authorities have cracked down on Islamic fundamentalists, not allowing them to stand in the elections.
Algeria has been a socialist republic since 1989. The country has been dominated since independence by the FLN (National Liberation Front) who fought against the French. In the 1990 elections, the fundamentalists of the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) defeated the FLN by a landslide. In 1992, fearing that Islamic fundamentalists would take control of Parliament, a group of military and civilian officials declared a state of emergency, suspended Parliament and established a new Higher State Committee with Mohamed Budiaf as chairman. This precipitated a violent conflict between the government, security forces and Islamic extremists. Budiaf was assassinated in 1992 and replaced by a Supreme Council. Since then the FIS terrorized the population with hundreds of deaths for years.
Morocco is a monarchy in which King Mohamed VI is the commander of the believers, and therefore the only civil and religious authority. The fundamentalists, the Muslim Brotherhood, Moroccans do not accept this authority, so they are not allowed to stand in the elections, and they are marginalized in state posts. However, it is considered that they are the majority in the country, thanks to their assistance work. Its leaders do not support the terrorist option.
Sudan, a country where Christians and Muslims lived side by side, is a republic dominated until 2019 by the dictatorship of Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir. Here there was a fundamentalist movement that came to power after elections in 1983 and establishing Islamic law. In reaction, the Movement for the Liberation of the People of the Sudan (Christians and animists) was formed, which overthrew the government in 1985. In 1989 Omar Hasan al Bashir carried out a coup and since then there has been a civil war between the Sudanese state and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and a social conflict between Christians and animists in the south and Muslims in the north that ended with the secession of the Christian south in 2011 with the proclamation of South Sudan, establishing itself as a Christian nation.
Chad is a republic in which Muslims do not exceed 45% of the population. These are concentrated in the north and since independence (1960) they have been at war, until 1993.
Mali is a republic that in 1992 approved a new constitution that allowed political pluralism, and Alpha Oumar Konaré was elected president. In 1993 there were student uprisings in Bamako; That same year there was an unsuccessful coup attempt by followers of Traoré, the military dictator who had ruled the country after overthrowing the socialist Modibo Keita. Fundamentalists are in the minority.
Mauritania is a republic that in 1980 adopted Sharia law. Faced with growing internal pressures, in 1991 the country was endowed with a new Constitution and opposition parties were legalized.
Conflicts with Western countries
Conflicts between Islamic societies and those traditionally Western have remote origins and historically have had as a background not only religious differences but also political issues on how to organize society, as well as conflicts over territorial and economic interests, etc.
There are three axes of conflict between the West and the Islamic world, which are the fight for control of the world oil market, the conflict between models of social and political organization and the conflicts of beliefs between different religious systems.
Religious conflicts have been present since the very origin of relations between the Western world and the Islamic world, and the most prominent conflicts with religious motives have been the Crusades between Christians and Muslims for control of Jerusalem, a city considered sacred for both religions. Within the distinctions that can be made between Western and Muslim societies in their various forms, there have been numerous political and territorial conflicts between them for reasons of control, power or territorial expansion, as well as different conflicts that are motivated both by the territorial expansion of entities political as well as the expansion of Islam, such as the Islamic invasions in Europe that have notably influenced the culture of European countries, the conquest of Egypt against the Byzantine Empire, the conquest by Western powers of territory inhabited by a Muslim majority, such as the case of North Africa and much of the Middle East during the late 19th century and early 20th century lost by the Ottoman Empire to Western powers, highlighting the territories lost to the United Kingdom and France in World War I later Italy in the Italo-Turkish War
On the other hand, within the Islamic world it is worth highlighting the Persian Gulf as a source of conflict, which is one of the most important regions of oil activity in the world, which is why there has always been a conflict between different economic interests and due to he struggle for control of the market and oil production has been the axis of Islamic fundamentalism and has made the region one of the most tense on the planet. The first energy-related conflict between the Western world and Muslims occurred during World War II in 1941 with the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran which led to the overthrow of the Shah of Persia, Reza Khan Pahlavi, whose government was openly sympathetic to Nazi Germany., thus ensuring the occupation of the large refineries in the Caucasus, many of them owned by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, and destined to supply the Soviets in the war against Germany in Eastern Europe and the British against the Empire of Japan in the Southeast Asian. Conflicts related to energy, as well as the interests of Western powers, have increased notably in the region since the 1973 Oil Crisis, motivated by the conflict of interests between oil producers and exporters, the Gulf countries, and importers. and European and American consumers.
Between 1980 and 1988 a war took place between Iran and Iraq. In Iran there has been a revolution of Shiism/Shia Islamic fundamentalism, which could have the potential to spread to all Islamic countries. In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, a major oil producer, and with the intervention of the United States in 1991 to liberate Kuwait by going to war with Iraq, the Gulf War began. The war ends with the liberation of Kuwait, however, since then there have been tensions between the government of Saddam Hussein and the United States that reached their highest rates on March 20, 2003, with the invasion of the country by the US. USA and the United Kingdom, which started the second Gulf war, overthrowing and executing Saddam Hussein, starting an occupation process that ended in August 2010 with the march of US troops.
Within this context and encompassing these factors, one of the sources of conflict since the middle of the XX century and which continues To this day, it is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that originates with the creation and existence of the State of Israel, considered by the vast majority of Muslims to be unfair and illegitimate, as well as being hostile towards their beliefs and stability. Many Muslims argue that the problem between the Islamic states and Israel is Zionism, making a clear distinction between Judaism and Zionism and defending the position that it is not about religious intolerance on the part of Islamists, but rather the Arab-Israeli conflict. it would be a conflict between the Arab ethnic group and the Jews who occupy the Arab land, arguing that it is not a war between Islam and Judaism. Israel as a nation-state maintains constant conflicts with the State of Palestine with which it maintains a territorial dispute and a situation of permanent conflict between the Israel Defense Forces and extremist groups of the Palestinian population such as Hezbollah, which proclaim to recover the territory granted to Israel by force and denounce that the State of Israel is committing violations of the human rights of the Palestinian population. However, the relations that Israel has and has had have not been the same with the different states of the Islamic world; Israel maintains commercial and diplomatic relations with many Muslim countries, mainly in the Middle East, highlighting Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which is the Muslim country that maintains the friendliest relations with Israel. Other states, such as Egypt and Jordan, have entered into diplomatic relations with Israel in addition to signing various peace treaties. However, Israel has had diplomatic and even armed conflicts with several countries besides Palestine, such as Egypt or Lebanon, and which received the support of many Islamic countries, as well as several Islamic countries do not recognize Israel as a legitimate state, as it is. the case of Bahrain or Bangladesh. In the same way, it has had changing relations with some countries, such as Iran; Before the Iranian Revolution, Persia and Israel had excellent bilateral relations, but currently, Iran opposes Israel's policy, just as Israel, together with the United States, affirms that Iran is dangerous to world stability and that it has possession of nuclear weapons. In addition to Palestine, Israel has territorial disputes with Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
Within this context, another conflict between the Islamic and Western worlds has to do with nuclear weapons. Nuclear tests carried out by Pakistan in 1998 brought with them sanctions by the United States. After the Gulf War, the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq to prevent it from developing weapons of mass destruction. These sanctions lasted a decade and an attempt was made to alleviate their consequences for the population with the Oil for Food program. Iran is currently being targeted by the United Nations on suspicion that it is manufacturing nuclear weapons.
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