Samson, Steven Alan

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Liberty UniversityDigitalCommons@LibertyUniversityFaculty Publications and Presentations Helms School of Government2003Fereydoun Hoveyda: The Broken Crescent StudyGuideSteven Alan SamsonLiberty University, ssamson@liberty.eduFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/gov_fac_pubsPart of the Other Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons, Political Science Commons, and thePublic Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Helms School of Government at DigitalCommons@Liberty University. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Liberty University. For moreinformation, please contact scholarlycommunication@liberty.edu.Recommended CitationSamson, Steven Alan, "Fereydoun Hoveyda: The Broken Crescent Study Guide" (2003). Faculty Publications and Presentations. Paper168.http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/gov_fac_pubs/168FEREYDOUN HOVEYDA:  THE BROKEN CRESCENT STUDY GUIDE, 2003 Steven Alan Samson  CHAPTER ONE:  FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH A MILITANT  Study Questions  1. What changes were taking place in the Middle East during the years following the First World War?  Who was Haj Amin al-Husseini and what political role did he play?  (7-13)  Review  Haj Amin al-Husseini  CHAPTER TWO:  THE IRANIAN CONNECTION  Study Questions  1. Who was Reza Khan (Shah)?  How did he rise to power in Iran?  What reforms did he introduce?  What manner of man was Alizadeh?  What was the Fedayin-e-Islam?  Who was its founder, Navab Safavi [perhaps a reference to the Safavid dynasty of Persia]. and what did he have against Ahmad Kasravi?  We meet them again in chapter four. (15-21)   Review  Reza Khan   Navab Safavi   Ahmad Kasravi  CHAPTER THREE:  THE COMMUNITY OF DEVOTED FIGHTERS  Study Questions  1. What was the background of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt?   What led him into political activity?  How did he wage his campaign of terror? What 11th century movement did he emulate?  What is ketman and how did Hassan use it?  How did the authorities suppress the Brotherhood?  (23-26)  2. What did Seyed Muhammad Qutb glean from his study of the American education system?  What sources of western decadence did he identify?  What did he accomplish?  (27-28)  Review  Hassan al-Banna  Muslim Brotherhood  ketman Seyed Muhammad Qutb      CHAPTER FOUR:  THE BEADS AND THE BULLETS  Study Questions  1. What is the “uncle syndrome” and its significance?  Identify some prominent leaders to whom it applies.   Identify two consequences of the military occupation of Iran early in the Second World War.  Who was the religious/mythological figure of Ahriman?  Why, until the 1950s, did the British help the religious fundamentalists?  (29-33)  2. Who was Dr. Muhammad Mossadegh?   What to breaking the three-way alliance   between him, Ayatollah Kashani, and the Fedayin?  Why did Averell Harriman’s mission fail?  What caused Mossadegh’s downfall?  (33-36)  Review  uncle syndrome   two trends due to occupation Dr. Muhammad Mossadegh  CHAPTER FIVE:  SOME PRECURSORS  Study Questions  1. How do Sunnites and Shiites differ with regard to interpretation of the Koran?  What is the tradition concerning the occultation of the twelfth imam, also called the mahdi (messiah)?  Identify some of the fundamentalist sects that have spun off from Shiism. Who are the Ismailis (also known as “seveners”) and the Aga Khan?  The Aga Khan dynasty, which founded the Fatimid caliphate in North Africa, is fabulously wealthy but holds no territory.  The most famous Aga Khan was the first president of the All-Muslim League of India from 1906-12 and in the 1930s represented India in the League of Nations, serving for a time as president of the League.  His son Aly Khan was a famous international playboy and one-time husband of Rita Hayworth.  Because of his lifestyle, the elder Aga Khan (Lord Master) passed him over in favor of his son Karim, who succeeded his grandfather in 1957 at the age of 20.  The current Aga Khan, a Harvard-educated businessman, is the 49th in the succession and is a direct descendant of Muhammad through Ali and Fatima.  He spends much of his time visiting his followers scattered around the world.  Ismaelis are an affluent sect that numbers around 15 million.    What is the secret Batini doctrine?  How did the Druze (who call themselves Mowahhidoon or monotheists, do not admit new members, and fail to practice the Five Pillars) and the Nusayris (Alawites) originate?  These last two offshoots, as well as the Ali-Ilahis (Alevis) and the Satpanthis, believe in reincarnation and manifestations of God In human form.  (37-39)  2. Who was Hassan Sabbah, the founder of the Assassins?  What was his relationship with the future grand vizier Nizam-ul-Mulk, who served the Seljuk (Turkish) sultan in Baghdad?  How did Sabbah’s Assassins operate?  Two centuries after Hassan Sabbah, Marco Polo may have conflated his story with that of the Old Man of the Mountain and his hired murderers in the Levant.  Who was Muhammad Ibn Tumart, the founder of the al-mowahaddin (Almohades) movement, whose closest aide after his death founded the North African Almohad dynasty?  BTW, many of our words, such as alchemy, alcohol, alfalfa, algebra, and alkali, have been derived from the Arabic: al- (the) + noun.  (39-42)  Review  Sunnite    Shiite    mahdi Ismailis (Ismailiya)  Batini    Assassins Hassan Sabbah  Muhammad Ibn Tumart  Almohad (Al-Mowahaddin)  CHAPTER SIX:  THE TURNING POINT  Study Questions  1. What was the most advanced civilization a thousand years ago?  Why were early Arab conquerors greeted as liberators?  What were some of the characteristics of Islamic government and intellectual life?  (43-46)  2. What are some reasons for the decadence that followed these early triumphs?  In other words, what turned Muslims from their early period of cultural creativity?  Hoveyda notes the growth of an Arab aristocracy that cut non-Arabs out of the loop in terms of real power.  As a consequence, many non-Arabs engaged in what is known as “out-bidding”: in this case, becoming more orthodox than the Arabs (or, as the expression goes, more Catholic than the Pope.  For example, the Seljuk sultans legitimized their rule in Mesopotamia, where the Abbassid caliph resided, by espousing the fundamentalist doctrines of Ash’ari.  Nizam-ul-Mulk founded an Islamic university in Baghdad and appointed the philosopher Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, a followed of Ash’ari, as its first rector. Ghazali resigned in 1095 and spent the next twelve years as a wandering Dervish or mystic before returning to teaching.  What was Ash’ari’s thesis?  Why is it incompatible with natural science and philosophy (Ghazali’s most famous work was entitled The Incoherence of the Philosophers).  What are the proper studies for Muslims, according to Ghazali?  How does the Islam of Muslim countries differ from that practiced in Trinidad, according to V. S. Naipaul (in Among the Believers)?  The reference to Andrei Zhdanov (Jdanov) alludes to Stalin’s sponsorship of what is known as Lysenkoism (a Soviet spinoff of Lamarck’s theory of evolution).  Zhdanov, who was a leader of the Great Purge, also lodged the famous accusation of “formalism” against the Russian composers Serge Prokofiev (who was pressured to give up his foreign wife) and Dmitri Shostakovich (who feared murder by the secret police), among others.  This campaign of intimidation became known as the Zhdanovshchina (Zhdanov’s Terror).  Hoveyda notes similar ravages by fundamentalists in the Muslim world.  (46-49)  Review  most advanced civilization Arab Bedouin government “outbidding” the Arabs Abu Hamid Ghazali  CHAPTER SEVEN:  FUNDAMENTALISM FOREVER  Study Questions  1. Who was Ibn Taymiya and what has been the nature of his influence?  What circumstances contributed to the spread of Wahhab’s brand of fundamentalism?  What role has been played by the family of ibn Saud?  Where and when have Wahhabi states been established?  Who was the Mahdi of Sudan, whose forces massacred a British garrison under Charles “Chinese” Gordon at Khartoum?  (More than a decade later the Mahdi’s successor was defeated by Lord Kitchener).  (51-54)  2. How do such militant fundamentalists differ from mainstream religious leaders?  How are they similar?  Why are mainstream Muslims so reluctant to condemn militants?  What explains the way charismatic leaders have been able to stir the masses?  Why, with one exception, have such leaders failed to institutionalize their rule?  Historically, as with the caliphate, this has been the great weakness of Islamic rule.  (54-56)  Review  Ibn Taymiya   Muhammad ibn-Abdal Wahhab Muhammad ibn Saud Muhammad Ahmad  CHAPTER EIGHT:  THE ISLAMIC STATE   Study Questions  1. Who was al-Farabi and what the nature of his Islamic political theory?  Who was al-Afghani (who influenced Muhammad Abdoh) and how did he follow in this tradition?  What is the thesis of his essay “Despotic Government?”  What did he mean by his concept of the just despot?  What did Daniel Lerner (author of The Passing of Traditional Society) learn about traditional Muslim political attitudes?   What have been the historical consequences of such beliefs?  (57-62)  Review  Al-Farabi   al-Afghani  CHAPTER NINE:  FUNDAMENTALIST AGENDAS  Study Questions  1. Self-anointed leaders and conflicts of authority are not unusual in the West, either.  The Investiture Contest of the eleventh and twelfth centuries between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope revolved, in part, around the claim of each to be God’s vicar on earth.  What were the expectations of Hassan al-Banna, Ali Shariaty, and Navab Safavi regarding Islamic government?  What reforms did Safavi seek?  Concerning the national economy, what was his grocer (bazaari) model?  What kind of government did he envision?  (63-66)  2. Who was Mawlana Mawdudi?  Why did he oppose the Muslim League’s promotion of a separate Muslim nation?  What is his theory of the Islamic state?  What are dhimmis [dhimmi is actually plural] and how are they restricted?  What did he mean by saying that Islam is a revolutionary ideology?  (66-69)  Review  grocer model   Mawlana Mawdudi  dhimmis  CHAPTER TEN:  ENTER KHOMEINI  Study Questions  1. What in  Ruhollah Khomeini’s background made him a “predestined child/”   What was   the Shah’s white revolution and what role did Khomeini’s opposition to it play in his  rise in influence?  What political views did he espouse?  What are nabis?  (71-76)  Review  white revolution   nabis  CHAPTER ELEVEN:  THEOLOGIAN AND TACTICIAN  Study Questions  1. During Khomeini’s exile in Najaf, Iraq, what two unexpected events came to his rescue? Who was Musa Sadr?  What were some of the reasons Khomeini made an alliance with liberals and politicians?  Who was Mehdi Bazargan and why did he believe that without the United States the revolution could not have triumphed?  How did the United States and the Shah both play into Khomeini’s hands?  What does the author mean when speaking of the “convoluted ways” of the “Iranian mind-set” and “the Iranian propensity to decode uncoded messages?”  (77-83)  Review  Musa Sadr   Mehdi Bazargan  Jimmy Carter   CHAPTER TWELVE:  THE KINDLING OF THE REVOLUTION  Study Questions  1. As he was dying why did the Shah seek to transform Iran into a “real” constitutional monarchy?  How did the Shah and Khomeini seek to defeat and discredit each other? What does it mean to be mahdur-o-dam?  How did the Shah misjudge the situation and allow his enemy to escape (thus violating Sun Tsu’s counsel in The Art of War:  “You should keep your friends close, but your enemies even closer)?  How did Khomeini come  to power?  (85-88)  2. What four changes were wrought (things coming to an end or beginning) with the rise of Khomeini?  What consequences has the Iran Revolution had for the world, especially for The United States?  What factors probably led Khomeini, like Mao, to conclude that the United States was a “paper tiger”?  (88-91)  Review  mahdur-o-dam   consequences of the Iranian Revolution  CHAPTER THIRTEEN:  THE PARTY OF GOD  Study Questions  1. How did the face of terrorism change after the Iranian Revolution?  Who was Hadi Ghaffary and what is the nature of the organization, Hezbollah, he founded and its ideology?  Whence comes the bulk of its membership and martyrs?  How was the Lebanese Hezbollah established?  How does it establish good public relations and recruit members?  How does it disguise its operations?  Think ketman!  (93-96)  2. Who is Ahmad Yassin and how the organization he founded, Hamas, operate?  What is Islamic Jihad?  Identify some of the fronts Hamas and similar organizations operate in the United States.   Who is Hassan al-Turabi and what is his role in Sudan?  What sort of image does he cultivate in the West?   Review  Hezbollah   Hadi Ghaffary   Hamas Ahmad Yassin   Hassan al-Turabi  CHAPTER FOURTEEN:  THE STRETCHING SHADOW  Study Questions  1. The five principles of Pancasila (Sukarno, 1945): belief in the one and only God, just and civilized humanity, unity of Indonesia, guided democracy (arising out of deliberations of representatives), and social justice.  What “theory of militant Islamic activity” in the United States did the prosecution attribute to Omar Abdal Rahman?  Why does the religious question remain unresolved in Turkey?  (101-09)   Review  Omar Abdal Rahman  Islamic activity in the United States Algerian FIS   Abbassi Madani  militant fundamentalism: Turkey  CHAPTER FIFTEEN:  THE CAUSES OF MILITANT FUNDAMENTALISM  Study Questions  1. Identify the chief causes of militant fundamentalism.  What are the chief cultural factors? What is the nature of the Muslim “identity crisis”?  (111-20)  Review  economic, political, and cultural factors Saudi welfare state policies of Muslim governments policies of United States inferiority complex Reza Shah’s dress code split caused by modernization identity crisis split personality   reaction to western malaise  CHAPTER SIXTEEN:  THE BROKEN CRESCENT  Study Questions  1. What is the role of the supreme guide of the Islamic Republic?  How has Iranian history been rewritten?  What are some of the other totalitarian or fascistic aspects of the Iranian Revolution and Tunisia’s al-Nahda?  (121-28)  Review  supreme guide   rewriting history   goals of al-Nahda fascism of the Iranian regime totalitarian vision of society: Hitler, Stalin, Khomeini features of militant fundamentalism  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:  THE CASE AGAINST THE WEST  Study Questions  1. How is the conflict between the House of Islam and the House of War perceived?  What are some of the historical injuries to Muslim pride?  Why was the West such a source of perplexity?  What was the double betrayal by the West?  What are some of the other grievances against the West?  (129-36)  Review  House of Islam (dar al-islam) vs. House of War (dar al-harb) Crusades Reconquista   treaty of 1699   three stages of defeat double betrayal by West militants’ criticisms of the West  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:  THE “GREAT SATAN”  Study Questions  1. What are some samples of Muslim conspiracy thinking?  Why does the United States appear to be the total enemy of Islam?  How has its behavior compounded the problem?  (137-42)  Review  conspiracy theories  reasons for anti-American rhetoric  CHAPTER NINETEEN:  A GLOBAL DANGER?  Study Questions  1. How have western observers and academics misread militant Islamic fundamentalism? Why is Israel resented?  Why is the destruction of western civilization countenanced? How has this project been systematically pursued?  What are the OIC and MAYA? (143-52)  Review  western search for moderates High Council of the Revolution militant conferences Usama bin Ladin  CHAPTER TWENTY:  HOLY WAR (JIHAD)  Study Questions  1. What are the five pillars of Islam?  What is the place of jihad?  What is its incentive? Where does it fit into the classical Muslim theory of international relations?  (153-58)  Review  jihad    pillars of Islam   no treaties between two houses Arab boycott  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:  A CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS?  Study Questions  1. What are some of the western views of the conflict between Islam and the West?  How does the author differ?  What is the real threat?  (159-63)  Review  Samuel Huntington  Benjamin Barber  Hilaire Belloc Muslim cultural withdrawal militant objectives  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:  PREPARING FOR THE “FINAL ROUND”  Study Questions  1. Illustrate the phenomenon of double talk?  How is war against the West being pursued? What strategy does it follow?  (The old Roman imperial strategy was “divide and rule”). How do militant fundamentalists take advantage of western freedoms?  How has the Extremist fringe taken root in the West?  (165-71)  Review  double talk   aim of fundamentalist terrorism brides of blood  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:  CAN MILITANT ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM SUCCEED?  Study Questions  1. What is Khomeini’s grand design?  Why will terrorism grow in the near future?  Why is The cost of fundamentalism “unbearable”?  What are some of the economic and social indicators of Iran’s great leap backward?  (173-82)  Review  Ayatollah Khomeini’s threefold plan  contamination by Western culture Iran’s economic and social problems  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:  A CHALLENGE TO THE WEST AND THE WORLD?  Study Questions  1. How were the human wave assaults and suicide bombings prepared by the Iranian government?  What role is played by drug trafficking?  What advantages associated with the civil society of the West do the fundamentalists miss?  Why is the status of women a reflection of backwardness?  Why is the West’s advance linked to the notion of risk?  (183-89)     Review  human wave assaults  drug trafficking   Taliban Bernard Lewis   conditions that allowed the West to forge ahead status of women   risk, uncertainty, probability  CONCLUSION:  THE “PAST SHOCK”  Study Questions  1. How has the rise of modernity affected the West?  What are some problems associated with the western response to militant fundamentalism?  (191-99)  Review  Alvin Toffler’s future shock normalization of relations with “rogue states”  causes of the challenge of militancy  STRATFOR WEEKLY, April 10, 2003: AFTER IRAQ: THE ONGOING CRISIS  Review  reasons for invading Iraq themes in the Arab press geopolitical issues Syria    Turkey    Iran  

Fereydoun Hoveyda: The Broken Crescent Study Guide

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