Eastern Mediterranean.

The Maronites and the Druzes were self-ruling in the hard to navigate highlands of Lebanon. The Maronites had strong links to the Vatican while the Druze were originally Shiite Muslims fleeing persecution in Cairo. The mountain dwellers paid tribute and were left in peace until 1591 when Fakhr al-Din came in to power and sought to expand his influence across Lebanon.

The Ottomans attacked Lebanon but Fakhr escaped to Tuscany. Fakhr and his sons were finally abandoned by their army, captured and excuted in Istanbul in 1635. The Lebanese feudal order recommenced and survived into the nineteenth century.

The Mamluks became very powerful in seventeenth century Egypt but there were intense and bloody internal rivalries and blood-feuds. It ended with a Mamluk household called the Qazdughlis dominating eighteenth century Egypt. Egypt, Lebanon and Algeria never lost their autonomy under the Ottomans but were required to pay tribute. The multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian empire bore similarities to the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. The latter half of the eighteenth century saw defiance against the Ottomans often aided by European support. The leaders of these revolts put the Ottoman state in jeopardy.

Ottoman rule was characterised by ruling in partnership with local elites. Once those local elites began to join forces with each other and Europe it signalled the beginning of the end.

Loyalty and Treachery

The two former Mamluk officials Sultan Selim appointed to be governors of Damascus and Cairo could not have been more different. One had fought valiantly against the Ottomans at Marj Dabiq while the other betrayed his leaders.

As soon as the Sultan died in 1520, the loyal governor of Damascus sought to restore the Mamluk empire. This led to another defeat by the Ottoman army who went on to plunder Damascus murdering 3,000 civilians while taking other hostage. Another revolt in Cairo was suppressed and Mamluk influence ended.

The Ottoman civil service and high ranking military were appointed from slave recruits taken from Christian Balkan villages in their early teens. Bizarrely this meant Arabs were underrepresented in the power elite of the early Ottoman empire.

Suleyman the Magnificent instigated law and order reforms. He made clear the relationship between government and tax-payers in a way that was ahead of its time. It covered everything from irrigation

Suleyman the Magnificent

to security all the way down to village level.

Sultan Suleyman II was one of the most successful rulers of the Ottoman Empire and he finished what his father started in conquoring the Arab world in his forty-six year reign. He took Baghdad and Basra from the Persian Safavid Empire 1520-1566 and was welcomed by the Sunni population as a liberator after years of Shiite Safavid persecution.

Central Arabia and Morocco were the only Arab territories to remain outside the Ottoman Empire.

The turn of the 16th century saw Spain conquor the Iberian peninsular ending eight centuries of Muslim rule. Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella then pursued holy war across the Muslim kingdoms where the Moriscos (refugees from Muslim Spain) took refuge. Ceuta and Melilla still survive as Spanish possessions on the Moroccan coastline.

North African Muslim dynasties put up little resistance to the Spaniards and paid tribute to the Spanish crown. This led to proud fishermen taking their jihad to sea in the West where they were known as the Barbary corsairs. This led to Algeria agreeing to succumb to Ottoman rule in exchange for military support. The Barbarys took Tunis and Algiers for the Ottomans. Charles the V took it back with massive fleet carrying horses and soldiers. A gale prevented the Spaniards finishing the job in Algiers for the loss of 150 ships and 12,000 men (not dissimilar to how weather prevented a French fleet from landing in Bantry 1798 to support Wolfe Tone's Irish revolution against the British). Tripoli and Tunis were taken in the sixteenth century. However, rule gradually shifted to local civil rulers and the Ottomans satisfied themselves with a small income from the territories and sovereignty over strategic Muslim territory. This arrangement worked until the 19th century and European colonization of North Africa.

French conquest of Algeria 1852

The Mamluks

The Mamluks empire spanned Egypt, Syria and Arabia for almost 300 years. They were incalcuably fierce yet, ironically, they're tenure ended near Aleppo in Syria. Back then, a Mamluk sultan would

Mamluk horseman circa 1550

personally lead his troops into battle, something that would be great to see today. Maybe then leaders wouldn't be so keen to go to war.

Going to war then was a visceral affair and the courage of the soldiers is beyond the comprehension of most of us today. I'm not saying today's soldiers aren't brave - that would be ludicrous - but on paper a sword fight scares me more than a gun fight.

Mamluks were a cast of elite slave soldiers. They were kidnapped from Christian families on the Eurasian steppe and then entered the ruling elite once they became experts in hand-to-hand combat. They were the ultimate bad-asses and silk robes complemented the armour you can see to the left. The army was must have been a magnificent sight and looking good was part of their code of chivalry (war is a dirty business so I'm not sure how much difference the silk and aftershave they wore made to the victims).

24 August, 1516, the Ottoman army led by Selim the Grim . Without getting in to any detail other than to say the Ottomans had already defeated the Byzantine Empire (Turkey) and were also fighting Persia (Iran), the Mamluks were ounumbered by three to one, plus the Ottoman's had infantry armed with muskets. The Ottoman's had no interest in gaining honour through hand-to-hand combat, they justed wanted the spoils. Not much has changed since.

The Mamluks were shot to pieces and the Ottomans became the new masters of Syria.

Artist Peter Dennis's depiction of Ottoman infantry.

 

 

The new sultan in Cairo banned hashish and alcohol to maintain discipline in the terrified army. The Ottoman's decimated Gaza and marched on Cairo early in 1517. After what happened in Marj Dabq, the Mamuks made sure they had plenty of guns this time. The Ottomans won and pillaged Cairo for three days. The locals paid homage to their new masters. What else could they do?

Selim the Grim publicly hanged sultan Tumanbay (who was allegedly betrayed by Bedouin tribesmen - not sure what that means in the scheme of things). He returned to Istanbul with Syria, Egypt and the Hijaz (the birthplace of Islam) under his belt. For the first time since the birth of Islam the Arab world was ruled from a non-Arab capital, a 'political reality that would prove one of the defining features of modern Arab history'. However, most Arabs (i.e. Sunni Muslims) were more concerned with law and order and fair taxes to care where the capital was. No one relly missed the Mamluks in Syria because the Ottomans were fairer rulers.  Because so much of their newly acquired territory was miles away the status quo didn't change much so long as taxes were paid.

Aleppo went on to become the great trade centres of Asia and the Mediterranean.

The End of the Cold War

The Ottoman's ruled Arab lands for 400 years until the end of the First World War. Local leaders became more powerful as European influence encroached on their empire at the end of the 17th C. In the 18th C leaders in Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Damascus, Iraq and Arabia posed a challenge to Ottoman rule. However, France and Britain created artificial borders for nation states to be placed under colonial rule, disappointing those encouraged by U.S. President Woodrow's Wilson's call for national self-determination.

British officers drive a car past theArab army in Damascus on 1 October 1918.

Nation-state nationalism caused tension between pan-Arab nationalist ideologies and do to this day.

By the time Arab states achieved independence in the 40s and 50s the divisions between Arab states had become permanent.

'The colonial exoerience left the Arabs as a community of nations rather than a national community, and Arabs remain disappointed by the results.'

The Second World War ended colonialism and started the Cold War. Alergeria, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and South Yemen sided with the Soviet Union. Tunisia, Lebabanon, Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States sided with the United States.

The Cold War ended shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

A West-Berliner hits the wall next to the Brandenburg Gate, 10 November 1989 .

The Soviets then voted in favour of a UN Security Council resolution authorising a U.S.-led war against their old ally Iraq.

After 9/11 Georg W. Bush led a war on terrorism that focused on the Muslim world. Violence and instabilty have been the norm in the Middle East since 1989. Only the Arab Gulf states have prospered.

Ottoman Conquests

Today the sun is shining and the temperature has risen. Being outside is a real pleasure because the weather is almost perfect.

Getting back to Rafiq Hariri, Syria was blamed for his assassination. Bashar-al-Alsad allegedly threatened Hariri.  There were huge anti-Syria demonstrations and the last of Syria's soldiers withdrew from Lebanon by the end of April 2005. Critics of Syria continued to be assassinated. One of the victims was journalist Samir Kassir who wrote with regret about the nahda, a time during the 19th C when secular modern Arab culture was blossoming. Kassir blames Arab stagnation and frustration as having caused the lean towards the Islamists.

Rogan talks about the dissembling of Western powers when explaining their intentions towards the Arab world. Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1878 under the guise of liberating the people rather than putting one over the British strategically.

Lieutenant General Sir Stanley Maude said the same thing (more or less) when he entered Baghdad in March 1917 at the height of WWI. Iraq was placed under direct British rule from 1920, following the brutal suppression of The Iraqi Revolt.

By the time George W. Bush arrived in iraq in 2003, they'd heard it all before. Rogan says 'It is bad enough to invade people without insult their intelligence'.

Modern Arab history begins with the gunpowder fuelled Ottoman onquests of 1516-1517.

Jerusalem Under Ottoman Caliphate.

Why The Arabs?

The BBC Middle East news pages claim that 10,000 Islamic State fighters have been killed since a US-led coalition launched a campaign against it nine months ago (according to the US government).

Earlier today I was chatting to some young pro-Assad Syrian ex-pats who believe America have in fact been financing IS, as a way of softening up the Middle East for the next big push.

I was in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan earlier this year doing some filming with a Christian band raising awareness about the plight of Christians fleeing IS. During our six day stay we spent a lot of time getting permissions from the Peshmerga and ministries of state. Even though IS controlled Mosul is just 50 miles North West of Erbil, one local man described life as 'normal'.

Me in Erbil earlier this year.

I'm not really a journalist - I was a news photographer for 20 years, now working in feature films. The purpose of reviewing, however messily, Eugene's Rogan's impressive book: 'The Arabs - A History' is to research a film I have in development

It's a big book, over 600 pages long and I plan to not so much review it here as to experience it. There will be some asides to garnish the information.

Part of me recoils from this exercise, largely because it is so self-indulgent, self-serving and bourgeoise. Part me me recoils from complacency of Brighton, where I live, with all its first-world problems. It can be difficult to embrace the good life we have when you know a few hours away horrific things are taking place.

Morgan Spurlock's 'Super Size Me' set out to bring McDonald's to account about the poor lifestyle choices it encouraged (allegedly - don't sue me). He was nominated for an Oscar and the film made $30m. He did the One Direction documentary in 2013. Sarcasm and mockery aside, Spurlock's altrusim is questionable in retrospect. Did he really want to save the world from harmful fast-food or was he all about the money? We'll never know. Art always fails one way or another but putting it out there does at least show how far short we've fallen. I think that's the point - to inspire those who follow us to do better.

Anyway, I'm not sure what all that was about. It's getting late and I haven't even read the first page of Rogan's tome. What I'm hoping is that it will inspire me to make a film about the middle-east that shows some knowledge of the region's history. At the end of the day, all films can do is entertain and make a few people some money. For me, its OK for a film to address contemporary issues with a bit of laissez-faire if it can remind people that life without love is meaningless. We are here to love each other and its not always easy.

The imagination must be given its head because it transcends logic and unites us with it's anarchic, preposterous creations and their unknowable origins. When writing about darker subjects what comes out of the subconscious is neither right nor wrong: it is what is it. It could even be who or what we are. Making a film about the middle-east, through the lens of the subconscious is a frightening prospect, but in the absence of reliable intelligence or consensus, we can only imagine what's going on in this crazy world of ours.

On Reading Eugene's Rogan's: 'The Arabs - A History' 

INTRODUCTION

On Valentine's Day 2005, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was killed by a car bomb in Beirut. He'd left himself open to corruption charges while rebuilding downtown Beirut (he was also a building contractor).

Hariri resigned as PM because he was sick of Syria interfering with Lebanon's politics.