The Islamic world stands on the threshold of unification | Alexander Dugin
On November 11, 2024, an emergency Arab-Islamic summit dedicated to the problem of Palestine was unexpectedly convened in Riyadh.
It is worth paying attention to the participation of two sworn enemies at the same time - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Such intersections were impossible until recently. In addition, the head of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, in his programmatic speech spoke not only about Palestine, but also about the need to support Iran and Hezbollah, which is also a sensation, because Saudi Arabia and Iran were considered enemies until the very end. The same is true for Hezbollah.
And finally, in his speech, Mohammed bin Salman directly said that not only the very existence of Palestine is now in question, but also the fate of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the second holiest site in Islam after Mecca.
Let me remind you that the Hamas operation to invade Israel on October 7, 2023 was called the "Al-Aqsa Flood" and was justified by the threat looming over this holy site. Hamas leaders clearly expected that such an emergency Arab-Islamic summit would convene much earlier - for example, immediately after the start of Israel's ground operation in Gaza. There is almost nothing and no one left from Gaza and the Hamas leadership (and Hezbollah), and the summit took place only now.
Question: Why now?
Obviously, because of Trump. It is known that Trump is a staunch supporter of right-wing Zionism. He actively supports Netanyahu, and during his first presidential term, he arbitrarily recognized Jerusalem (considered by most UN member states as occupied territory) as the capital of the State of Israel. Most likely, Trump intends to support such radicals as Netanyahu's government ministers Bezalel Smotrich, Ben Gvir and their spiritual leader, Rabbi Dov Lior. All of them openly proclaim that Israel must blow up the Al-Aqsa Mosque as soon as possible, destroy the Palestinians and even seize Syria along with Damascus in order to build a Greater Israel from sea to sea.
After Trump's election, emboldened, Bezalel Smotrich directly stated that now it is also necessary to begin the destruction of the Palestinians on the West Bank of the Jordan River. And, of course, to blow up Al-Aqsa. No matter how hard the leader of the Palestinians of the West Bank and a staunch political opponent of Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas, tried to maintain a moderate position, even watching the genocide of his people in Gaza, he was not spared the iron will of the Zionists for a final solution to the Palestinian problem.
Trump has accelerated these processes. Now the proponents of a moderate position in relations with the West are completely deprived of arguments: Israel is determined to destroy or deport the Palestinian population from Israel, demolish the Al-Aqsa Mosque and begin building the Third Temple. According to the Zionists, this paves the way for the coming of the Jewish Moshiach.
All these factors forced the leaders of the Islamic world to overcome their internal contradictions and gather together in Riyadh. Erdogan called for a boycott of Israel. Mohammed bin Salman demanded recognition of Palestine and the consolidation of all Islamic countries to repel Zionist aggression against the Palestinians, Lebanon and Iran. At the same time, Israel is also attacking Syria, so Assad’s presence and tough anti-Western speech were very symbolic.
The Islamic pole of the multipolar world is finally – with a huge delay – beginning to acquire a visible expression. Perhaps the Islamic leaders themselves would prefer to continue to avoid consolidation and compromise with the West. But this is already becoming dangerous for them: the Muslim population of their own countries, seeing such passivity, constantly watching the mass extermination of Palestinians and awaiting with horror the destruction of their religious shrine, does not intend to tolerate this for long.
Perhaps, in the historical perspective, this emergency Arab-Islamic summit will become the most important milestone of Islamic integration. The fact is that building a multipolar world is not a momentary slogan. This is the most important trend in world politics. The collective West and the United States are clearly not coping with the role of global leader. Although the conservative Trump, an opponent of globalism, is coming to power in Washington, it is unlikely that America will be able to maintain its hegemony not only in the long term, but even in the short term. Trump can strengthen the United States from within, solve many pressing problems. It cannot be ruled out that he will fulfill his promises and make America great again, but this will only concern America itself. The rest of humanity will go its own way, strengthening its own civilizations in every possible way, restoring its full and multi-level sovereignty.
By agreeing to the status of one of the provinces of humanity, the West can also fit into multipolarity - and on quite worthy grounds, but it will never be the only and highest authority in making global decisions and in determining universal rules and norms. Therefore, multipolarity is irrevocable and has no alternative.
What does this mean for the Islamic world? The need for integration, the establishment of some new supranational structure that could consolidate the enormous potential of the entire Muslim Ummah and thus create a full-fledged pole. Today, not a single Islamic state, taken separately, is capable of playing the role of a pole of this civilization or being considered the core of integration. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Indonesia, nuclear Pakistan, Egypt, etc. are completely independent. But none of them can take on the mission of uniting all the others. Therefore, some completely new project is needed to consolidate the Islamic world.
The question of what ideology or what role model can be taken as the basis for Islamic integration arose quite a long time ago. Even at the first stage of the anti-colonialist struggle against the West, Islamic scholars began to offer various versions of such unification. Now we are not considering Western versions of politics - liberalism, socialism and nationalism, which for obvious reasons cannot be the doctrinal basis for Islamic integration.
Much more thoughtful versions were projects based on pure Islam. Here, Islamic theorists called on the peoples of the ummah to abandon national customs and unite only on the basis of Sharia.
Most often, the first two caliphates were taken as the basis and ideal in such cases: the Arab, created by Muhammad within the borders of the Arabian Peninsula, and the Umayyad with its center in Damascus, formed in 661 under the rule of Mauvia, who was the sixth caliph of the Arab Caliphate and the first Umayyad.
The role model of the First Caliphate is most vividly represented in Wahhabism, which is the official religion of Saudi Arabia. Here, all the legal schools of Islam that developed much later, any local customs are rejected, moreover, the entire tradition of interpreting the Koran and Sunnah is rejected. The result is a completely simplified version of religion, reduced to ritual practices and a literal understanding of texts. This is no longer a religion, but a kind of ideology. At the same time, due to its simplicity, it is easily accessible to anyone.
The Wahhabi project was actively supported at one time by the CIA and the USA in general to counter pro-Soviet tendencies in the Islamic world as the core of a fundamentalist movement. This trend includes Al-Qaeda* and other terrorist structures. Unity based on Wahhabism was proposed to all Islamic societies along with calls for war against the infidels. The role of "infidels" was played primarily by the geopolitical opponents of the USA.
In the 1990s, the West's need for Wahhabism diminished, and the idle terrorist religious-political structures began to attack their masters. As a result, the West itself had to fight Al-Qaeda* and its branches. And in general, the attractiveness of Wahhabism among Muslims fell sharply, and the project of returning to the First Caliphate petered out.
Another current in Islam, Salafism, is quite close to Wahhabism. It takes the Second Caliphate, not the First, as its role model. This was already a full-fledged state, whereas the First Caliphate was based on a charismatic religious leader and was an armed community of believers.
Supporters of the anti-colonialist struggle in the Islamic world turned to Salafism even earlier than to Wahhabism, putting forward the idea of ​​a single global Islamic state. Here, too, local traditions were sharply rejected, but the attitude towards legal schools and even some versions of internal Islam, Sufism (which the Wahhabis categorically deny) was much softer. Thus, the Salafi movement "Muslim Brotherhood"* was founded on the basis of the Egyptian Sufi tariqa and the ideas of the famous Sufi al-Ghazali. Later, however, this movement became increasingly simplified and less and less Sufi. Incidentally, Hamas was founded as a branch of the "Muslim Brotherhood"*.
Salafism, like Wahhabism, insisted on a simplified and literal interpretation of the Koran, rejecting local traditions. But the main emphasis was placed on the creation of a single Islamic state without any differences in ethnicity, family, origin, etc. At certain stages, both Erdogan and Qatar gravitated toward Salafism, and the Afghan Taliban are representatives of this trend in its Central Asian version at the present time. It is quite widespread in Pakistan, as well as Indonesia and Malaysia.
Most of the terrorist groups of Islamic fundamentalism are based on Salafist views.
However, even in the case of the Salafis, with their role model of the Umayyad Caliphate, the cause of Islamic integration did not advance, since their radicalism, rigid rejection of regional peculiarities and terrorist methods were rejected by the majority of the Ummah. The Salafis tried to play a leading role in the "Arab Spring", but only contributed to civil wars and unrest in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Iraq and Syria. As a result, they not only fell out among themselves, but also discredited themselves in the eyes of the majority of Muslims.
At some point, Erdogan placed the appeal to the Fourth (final) Caliphate at the center of his policy. This project combined Islamism (of the Salafi persuasion) and Turkish nationalism, although the secular Kemalism rooted in Turkey does not fit into this system at all. Nevertheless, the role model of the Ottoman Caliphate was seriously considered by Erdogan, especially before the 2016 coup.
The idea of ​​restoring the Ottoman Caliphate corresponded to Turkey's strategic interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, could legitimize its claims to control the northern territories of Iraq and Syria, and also attract a number of Arab states to its side, primarily those in one way or another connected with Salafism and the Muslim Brotherhood*.
But this strategy also failed, primarily due to the rejection of Turkish domination by the Arab states, which were not at all eager for the return of the Turks to a leading role in the region.
In fairness, a few words should be said about the Shiite project. After the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, its leader Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed a new era - the struggle of peoples (primarily Islamic) against the hegemony of the atheistic materialistic West. Khomeini was a convinced Shiite, founded a special Shiite system of government in Iran (vilayat-i-faqih) and was supported by Shiites in other countries, primarily Lebanon. But he believed that his call was addressed to all Muslims, whom Ayatollah Khomeini called upon to rebel against the secular post-colonial godless government and establish a system of Islamic government. Moreover, he also addressed non-Muslims, also inviting them to rebel against the "great shaitan" - Western civilization.
Although Khomeini's ideas triumphed in Iran and gained wide support in the Shiite world, the Sunnis were suspicious of them. In the eyes of the Arabs, it was a Persian project, as in the case of the Turkish-Ottoman one.
Thus, this version of the unification of Muslims was also not accepted.
Even such a brief overview of the ideas of pan-Islamic unification immediately points to what was missed. We are talking about the Third - Abbasid - Caliphate. Not a single Islamic movement had yet turned to it. And this omission is all the more strange because it was in the Abbasid Caliphate that we see the brightest and most harmonious period of Islamic flourishing. The Abbasids, who ruled in Baghdad (hence another name - the Baghdad Caliphate), reconciled the Persians and Arabs, Central Asia and North Africa, Mesopotamia and Anatolia, Sunnis and Shiites. It was during this period that all the legal schools of interpretation of Islam were formed. Arts, sciences, philosophy and technology flourished. The main mystical teachings of Sufism and spiritual Shiism were created in it. The Abbasid philosophers al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Jabir ibn Hayyan were known throughout the world and were diligently studied by medieval Europe, subjecting every word to careful interpretation.
The Baghdad Caliphate was the unconditional summit of Islamic history, the peak of its rise. And here the unity of all Muslims was ensured not by the simplification of religion, but by its complication, fundamental and refined philosophical interpretation. The religion, open to all, called to itself first of all the highest minds, immersed in the endless meanings of the Koran, the Sunnah and the original works of Islamic philosophers, mystics, teachers.
The Arab origin harmoniously overlapped with the Persian, and other peoples contributed their share - the Turks, Kurds, Berbers, etc. And here is the most important thing: looking at the emergency Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh, it is the Abbasid Caliphate that comes to mind. All the main countries and currents of Islam were gathered here.
The Islamic civilization will be able to be a full-fledged pole of a multipolar world only if it manages to unite. And it is very important on what ideological basis this time. The missed role model of the Baghdad Caliphate itself suggests the answer.
An appeal to the Baghdad Caliphate could also be a solution to the Iraqi problem. This is, of course, a detail in comparison with the general project of Islamic unification, but a very important one.
In its current state, Iraq is doomed to disintegration. There is no idea or ideology that could keep together the three poles of modern Iraq – the Shiite Arabs (the majority), the Sunni Arabs and the Kurds – even remotely close. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq existed due to Baathism and the dominance of secular Sunni Arabs. This is gone forever. Neither the Shiite nor the Salafi (tested in an attempt to build an Islamic state on Iraqi territory) projects will work. And it is not even about the American occupation. If the Americans leave, a civil conflict is inevitable anyway.
Now let's imagine that the Islamic world has begun to seriously consider the "Abbasid Caliphate 2.0" project. It is logical to return to Mesopotamia, that is, Iraq as its symbolic capital. This means that Iraq automatically becomes a sacred center, balancing Arabia, Iran, Turkey, the Maghreb, the Middle East, and South Asia. The question of "Sunnis or Shiites" is removed. Salafism and Wahhabism as a general idea are rejected, but they can exist as trends that no longer claim exclusivity. The dream of the Shiites to be in a single field with the rest of the Islamic world is coming true, as is the dream of the Kurds, who will no longer be cut by post-colonial borders. The Turks are also implementing their own integration plans to spread their influence beyond the national state. The balance between the Iranians and the Arabs will be restored again.
This will be the moment of a real revival of Islam as a sovereign pole of a multipolar world. And Iraq will turn from a disunited country into a territory of new prosperity.
What happened in Riyadh on November 11, 2024, could become a turning point in history. If things continue to develop this way, historians will call it after the fact "the beginning of the formation of an Islamic pole in the context of a multipolar world." Yes, this unification is happening in the face of a deadly challenge from Zionist Israel and the collective West. But this is often how it happens: when there is a common terrible enemy threatening to destroy the holy place, then all forces gather, all historical precedents and ancient legends are remembered, and prophecies and legends acquire a new life, revealing their secret meaning.
We do not want to force events. The symbolic meaning of what is happening is obvious. But how the relationship between the spiritual logic of history and its direct factual state will develop this time is unknown. However, this does not relieve us from trying to decipher the signs of the times as correctly as possible.
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