The current countries in the Middle East and North Africa were all formed, or transformed, in the nineteenth and early twentieth century by processes of partitioning and territorialization propelled by European colonial expansion and local responses to those interventions. As the region’s political topography was remapped before and after the First World War, collective identities were activated, reimagined, and mobilized within and across these newly delineated units. From Northern Africa to the Iranian plateau, an array of nationalisms emerged over the course of this transformation, pairing notions of peoplehood and political sovereignty in new frameworks of identity. For the Middle East and North Africa, the related questions “what is a nation?” and “when is the nation?” are best answered by focusing on a third question: how has the nation (and nationalism) worked in the region over the past two centuries?

This chapter examines some Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian thinkers who argued that religious values and civilizational discourse needed to be front and center in discussions of political economy. The Pan-Islamic thinkers called for new kinds of economic solidarity among a transnational Islamic community that could promote its interests and values within the world economy. Their proposals included Iranian-born Jamal al-Din al-Afghani’s calls for the collective economic modernization of the Islamic world, the endorsement of specific joint economic projects such as the Hejaz railway by Ottoman sultan Abdulhamid II, and India’s Sayyid Abul A’la Mawdudi’s focus on the need for all Muslims to embrace a new kind of Islamic Economics. By contrast, the Pan-Asian thinker Sun Yat-sen focused on the interests and values of a transnational community that he conceptualized in civilizational terms. Sun argued that Asian countries’ interests and values could be promoted by development-oriented economic cooperation amongst themselves, their collective pursuit of neomercantilist goals, and an alternative tributary model of international economic governance centered on the principle of the “rule of Right.”

This chapter departs from the curious Memorandum of Understanding signed between Hizbollah and some of Tripoli’s Salafis in 2008. Tripoli’s Salafis, who perceived themselves as custodians of the Sunni doctrine and identity, were known for their very antagonistic discourse vis-à-vis the Shiʿa Hizbollah movement.

This chapter shows how sectarianism and the new political polarization in Lebanon after the Syrian pull-out in 2005 caused the Islamists in Tripoli to change their strategies and divide. The more liberal, but highly conflictual, climate empowered the Islamists on the one hand, but also divided them along a variety of political issues being debated in Lebanon on the other. Some aligned themselves with the March 14 Alliance and the Future Movement, while others came closer to Hizbullah, Future’s opponent. Yet, Islamists in Tripoli also came together to collectively engage in pan-Islamist protests. This indicates that most of Tripoli’s Islamists are independent actors, and that Islamists cannot be viewed as one collective political force.

The rapid technological advances which took place in the second half of the 19th century – most notably steam shipping, the opening of the Suez Canal, and printing -- allowed for increased exchanges and communication across Islamized Asia. The intellectual vitality that enveloped Cairo and Mecca reached many across Asia, whether directly through travel or indirectly through publications. As World War One brought about the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the end of the Caliphate in 1924, at the same time reinforcing European colonial presence, Muslim communities world-wide became involved with pan-Islamism, whether as a reflection of their interest in the resurgence of a caliphate, or as a strategic component of their anti-colonial efforts, further reinforcing the sense of community and belonging. This chapter follows the impact of the Caliphal crisis across Asia with a focus on the Netherlands East Indies, British India and Soviet Central Asia, as Muslims in these locales became main initiators of forums to discuss the future of the Caliphate and came to embrace pan-Islamism as a rallying point to achieve independence, even though their frames were largely shaped by local understandings and experiences of culture, religion and politics. [193]

Chapter 3 examines Saudi and Syrian threat perceptions during the Iran–Iraq War (1980–8). This chapter explores why, and the conditions under which, Saudi Arabia and Syria diverged in their perceptions of threats emanating from both Iran and Iraq. While Saudi Arabia perceived the revolutionary message of the Islamic Republic as the major source of threat, Syria perceived Iraq’s rising military capabilities as most dangerous. The Saudi case illustrates a situation where identity is immutable while the distribution of military capabilities presented the leadership with multiple options. Due to the lack of multiplicity in Saudi regime identity based on pan-Islamism, ideational sources of threats became predominant in leaders’ perception. The Syrian case illustrates a situation, where the regime identity included multiple narratives and the distribution of military capabilities imposed threats emerging from the military capabilities from both Iraq and Israel. The material constraints left the Syrian leadership with limited policy options to ensure the state’s physical security. Syrian leaders forced a reframing and reinterpretation of the regime’s identity to accommodate the material constraints and to render its alliance with Iran against a fellow Arab regime in Iraq plausible. Arabness was reinterpreted as the struggle against Israel instead of unity among Arabs.