Martin Kramer

Collective identities in the Arab world contain multiple components. Religion, Arab nationalism and territorial patriotism are the most prominent. These elements are not mutually exclusive and often even complement one another. Moreover, the emphasis or priority given to each of the ingredients of identity by individuals or movements depends on historical developments at a particular time and place.^[1]

One of these components, Islam, “provides a national identity,” according to the late Ernest Gellner, “notably in the context of the struggle with colonialism.” ^[2] Yet Islamic movements in the Middle East have often evinced ambivalence toward nationalism. At the heart of their opposition resides the contradiction between the universality of doctrinal Islam and the particularism of nationalism; the inclusion of non-Muslims within the national community; and the Western origins of nationalist ideologies.

Nonetheless, Arab Islamist thinkers had been forced to accommodate their teachings to the rise of Arab nationalism as a dominant ideology and political force in the region as early as the 1930s.^[3] More recently, the growing power of the territorial states in the modern Middle East, particularly since the 1967 war, has transformed the pan-Islamic idea into an ideal which could be fulfilled—if ever—only in the very distant future. Their pan-Islamic rhetoric notwithstanding, most Islamic movements in the Arab world today have reluctantly accepted the reality of Islam’s division into territorial nation-states. And although they share common ideology and cordial relations with one another, they do not have one overall organization and leadership. They are organized along the lines of the various territorial units and largely confine their activities to their respective states.^[4]

The ideological development of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, or Hamas, its acronym) serves as an important case study of this wider phenomenon. For most other Islamist movements, the problem of nationalism has been overshadowed by the struggle with secular elites over the Islamic content and character of their respective states. By contrast, the unresolved question of Palestinian nation-formation and statehood, as well as the fusion of Islam and nationalism in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, have made the issues of nationalism more pertinent and urgent to Hamas.

Hamas was founded as the underground armed wing of the Muslim Brethren movement in the Gaza Strip at the beginning of the Palestinian uprising (the Intifada) in December 1987. Through Hamas, the Muslim Brethren hoped to play a major role in Palestinian politics during a crucial period.^[5] Thus, it formulated its ideology in rivalry with the secular national Palestinian forces within the PLO, and in opposition to Zionist-Israeli claims to the land. Seeking to appeal to wider constituencies, Hamas had to present itself not just as a religious alternative to the secular PLO leadership, but also as a national one. Consequently, it had to incorporate Palestinian nationalist elements and discourse into its Islamic ideology. Hamas was able to solve this dilemma and respond to the nationalist and Zionist challenges by Islamizing Palestinian identity, both of the land and the people, and by introducing Palestinian elements into its pan-Islamic ideal. How did it square this circle?

The Muslim Brethren and Nationalism

The Muslim Brethren’s approach to the question of nationalism was formulated by Hasan al-Banna, their founder and leading ideologue. Al-Banna rejected nationalism as a secular, exclusivist and selfish value. He saw it as a foreign implant, designed to break down Islamic unity in order to speed western takeover of Islamic lands. Yet, given of the spread of nationalism in Egypt, al-Banna tried to reconcile it with Islam by endowing patriotism with Islamic meaning. It is religion which provides man with true love for his homeland and the force to fight for it, Banna taught.^[6]

Drawing from the ideas of early Islamic reformism, which glorified the role of Arabic and the Arabs in Islam, and in response to the rise of pan-Arabism in Egypt during the 1930s, al-Banna described the Arab nation as the only legitimate national entity within the Islamic umma, the community of believers. Moreover, the Islamic umma needed the existence of the Arab nation, which would provide the spiritual power for achieving its liberation and redemption. Hence, Arab unity was vital to the restoration and unity of the Islamic umma.^[7] Banna spoke of a hierarchy of concentric circles of identity, in which patriotism and Arab nationalism ultimately lead to Islamic unity in one supra-territorial and supra-racial homeland.^[8]

The Muslim Brethren organizations, which operated in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as separate entities during the 1948-87 period, adhered to al-Banna’s teaching on nationalism both before and after the 1967 War. Although the Palestinian-Israeli conflict accelerated the formation of Palestinian national identity, the Muslim Brethren viewed the Palestinian predicament and the establishment of Israel through an Islamic prism. They emphasized the “Islamic essence” of the Palestinian problem (Islamiyat al-qadiyya al-Filastiniyya), depicting the Arab-Israeli conflict as a religious-cultural struggle against the most blatant form of Western aggression against Islam.^[9]

The Muslim Brethren viewed the loss of Palestine as a major symptom of the malaise of the Muslim world. Consequently, they argued that only following the return of the Arabs to Islam, culminating in the establishment of a supra-national Islamic state, would they be able to defeat Zionism. The local Palestinian orientation in their ideology during the 1950s and 60s was limited to the argument that the mission of the supra-national Islamic state was the liberation of Palestine, and that the future jihad referred primarily to the struggle against Zionism.^[10]

The Muslim Brethren’s solution for the Palestinian problem, which subordinated the struggle with Israel to the internal healing of the Muslim world, ran counter to the mainstream of the Palestinian national movement, particularly after the 1967 War. The Brethren’s abstention from armed resistance to Israel stood in stark contrast to the Palestinian guerilla organizations, which advocated and waged armed struggle against Israel and worked to mobilize the Palestinian masses into the newly-revived Palestinian national movement. While the Brethren shunned immersion in Palestinian politics, they expanded their network of religious-social institutions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.^[11]

Yet the Muslim Brethren could not be untouched by the wider forces that spurred the growth of Palestinian identity. Around the Middle East, the decline of pan-Arabism encouraged the consolidation of territorial identity. The conflict with the Israeli occupation set the inhabitants of the Territories further apart from Jordan and promoted the formation of a distinct Palestinian identity. The Palestinian intelligentsia worked to propagate and inculcate Palestinian nationalism among the Palestinian masses, and this did not leave Islamic circles unaffected. For Islamist activists born under Israeli occupation, the natural political frame of reference was Palestinian. Members of this generation, who had been disappointed by the PLO, saw the Islamic path as a remedy for a national predicament. Over time, Islamic and Palestinian identities became enmeshed. The growth of the Islamic movement entailed the assimilation of the prevalent national and ideological discourse in Palestinian society.

       Even before the Intifada, signs of this assimilation could be discerned in the discourse of the Muslim Brethren. Thus, a leaflet circulated in the summer of 1986 by the Brethren’s affiliated “Islamic Course” stressed the need to preserve Palestinian identity, since its preservation revives the Palestinian cause, while “the elimination of such an identity would mean the total eradication of the [Palestinian] cause.” Another indication was the appearance of the map of Palestine, painted in the colors of the Palestinian national flag, in publications of the Islamic movement.^[12]

       The growing Palestinian orientation of the Muslim Brethren culminated in the founding of Hamas at the beginning of the Intifada, when the movement decided to pursue a leadership role in Palestinian politics.^[13] True, the establishment of Hamas did not mark a clear break with the Muslim Brethren’s previous approach to nationalism. Like other Islamic movements, Hamas traces the roots of the tragedies and defeats that have befallen the Muslims, and the Palestinians in particular, to the abandonment of Islam and the turning towards “the idols” of Westernization, chief among them nationalism (qawmiyya). Among Islam’s worst defeats were the abolition of the Caliphate and the subsequent disintegration of Islamic unity, which enabled the West to implant the “Zionist entity” in the heart of the Muslim world.^[14] In this view, the evils of Zionism and nationalism were intertwined.

Yet as part of its effort to replace the PLO as the national Palestinian leadership, Hamas sought to formulate a more populist position vis-à-vis Palestinian and Arab nationalism. In the words of one activist, Khalid al-Amayira, it had to articulate a version of Islamic nationalism that appealed to wider masses. It did not abandon its pan-Islamic ideals and did not adopt secular nationalism, but sought to Islamize the idea of Palestine. The adoption of a nationalist line by Hamas, he said, was tactical. It did not involve a change of identity or essence, but a stage in the evolution of Hamas as a political movement.^[15]

The integration of the Palestinian identity within the Islamic one is most revealing in Hamas’s major ideological and canonical text, the Hamas Covenant. The Covenant’s opening statement defines Hamas as an Islamic movement which draws its “ideas, terminology and concepts” from Islam. It also describes Hamas as “a branch of the Muslim Brethren movement in Palestine,” which is a universal movement and the largest Islamic movement in the world. Yet, in a marked change from past practices, the Hamas Covenant declares that “Hamas is a distinctive Palestinian movement,” striving “to hoist Allah’s flag on every piece of land in Palestine.” ^[16] Another official publication describes Hamas as a Palestinian movement in its origins and orientation, whose main concern is Palestine.^[17]

Like other national movements, the immediate goal of Hamas is the liberation of Palestine from Jewish occupation. As an Islamic movement, Hamas wanted this state to be Islamic, governed and organized according to Islamic law, the sharia. Shaykh Ahmad Yasin, Hamas’s founder and first leader, envisioned such a state as the first stage toward a supra-national Islamic state. Yet he insisted on the establishment of such a state as the precondition for attaining the pan-Islamic ideal, and expressed reservations toward a confederation with Jordan before such a state was established.^[18]

The very definition of Palestine and its borders reflects the impact of nationalist ideologies on Hamas. Hamas spokesmen acknowledge that Palestine in its present borders never existed as one political or administrative unit during over a millennium of Muslim rule (from 638 to 1917). They also condemn the modern political divisions in the Middle East as a product of Western designs. Nonetheless, they take these very borders and map as their point of departure in discussing the land and the people. Hamas’s officials speak of Palestine “from the [Jordan] river to the sea,” as an almost natural historical-political unit, even applying it to the past, but without examining how these borders came about. Indeed, the map of Palestine Hamas uses is the one drawn by the British mandatory power, a practice that seems to confirm Benedict Anderson’s observation that over time, nationalists often endorse administrative-colonial borders as the borders of the fatherland.^[19]

As part of the transformation of Hamas, it embraced Palestinian national symbols, but endowed them with Islamic meaning. During the 1970s, activists of the Islamic blocs in the West Bank universities, which had been affiliated with the Muslim Brethren, used to carry green Islamic flags with Qur’anic passages inscribed on them. Hamas, on the other hand, adopted the Palestinian national flag, with the modification of an emblazoned shahada, the Islamic profession of faith. Hamas called this montage the Islamic Palestinian flag. Likewise, Hamas activists wore gowns or masks sown with the colors of the Palestinian flag during political processions. They draped the coffins of slain Palestinians with the Palestinian flag. The national significance of the flag becomes even clearer when compared with the hoisting of Iranian flags, termed “Islamic flags,” by Hizballah in Lebanon.^[20] Whereas Lebanese identity implied a Christian element, which Hizballah had to reject, both Palestinian identity and flag symbolized defiance of Israel, which Hamas shared.

Hamas made use of the map of Palestine in posters, graffiti and emblems as a visual means to integrate the patriotic and Islamic messages. Various posters showed the map with the Palestinian or green flag, emblazoned with the shahada, breaking through the surface. On other occasions the map was painted with the colors of the Palestinian flag, with the words al-Qur’an al-Karim (the Noble Qur’an), or a picture of the Dome of the Rock added to it. A particularly good example of this change is the modification of the Muslim Brethren emblem. The original emblem shows the Qur’an amidst two crossed swords, with the word wa-aiddu, (make ready),^[21] written beneath the swords. In the emblem modified by Hamas, the map of Palestine replaces the Qur’an.

In other words, the universal call to prepare for a struggle for the sake of Islam was now directed to the more specific Islamic struggle for Palestine. Even simple patriotic posters, such as a warrior holding a rifle or a fighter smashing a Star of David, had Qur’anic passages inscribed on top, to show the spiritual inspiration behind the national struggle. Likewise, the picture or sketch of the Dome of the Rock, the exact place where, Muslims believe, the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven, appears very frequently in official documents, publications and posters issued by Hamas (and often by the secular PLO as well). It should be noted, however, that the display of the Palestinian flag or of other visual symbols depicting the map of Palestine in various images (such as a mother in a famous PLO poster) are less common in Hamas’s publications than in those of the PLO.^[22]

The integration of Islamic and national discourses is not new in Palestinian history. The religious idiom has always played an important role in the evolution of Palestinian nationalism and in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In the past however, it was mostly the nationalist Palestinian elites—the notables during the British Mandate and the Fatah movement since the early 1960s—which employed Islamic symbols and themes in order to mobilize popular support for the national cause, whose aims were largely political and secular.^[23] The nationalization of Islam or the usage of religion in the service of nationalism has been common in the Middle East and in other national movements as well.

By contrast, Hamas has been first and foremost a religious movement. The Islamic idiom has been central to its ideology, and its ultimate goal is the establishment of an Islamic society and state. It harnesses and subordinates the nationalist idiom to its religious agenda, as shown by its depiction of the Palestinian cause as “a matter of faith and religion, and not one of earth and soil.”^[24] Whereas the PLO had stressed national liberation as its raison d’étre, Hamas described itself as struggling also in order to defend “the Muslim person, Islamic culture, and Muslim holy sites, first and foremost among them, al-Aqsa Mosque.”^[25] The different emphasis of the two discourses is also evident in the titles of the leading publications of the two movements. The PLO’s Filastin al-Thawra (Palestine of the Revolution) reflects the revolutionary ethos, and Hamas’s Filastin al-Muslima (Muslim Palestine) indicates the Islamic essence of Palestinian identity.

Every national movement defines itself in opposition to some “other.”^[26] Indeed, the very definition and depiction of the other, often a negative one, reflects the perception of the self. The substitution of the religious discourse for the national one is clearly manifested in the representation of the self and other in the writings of Hamas. Whereas the PLO used to depict the conflict as one between Palestinians and Zionists, Hamas views it as one between Islam and Judaism, or Muslims and Jews.

The Sanctification of Islamic Palestine

How did Hamas justify the elevation of the Palestinian component in its ideology to such a central position? Like all other Muslim Brethren movements, Hamas extols patriotism (wataniyya) as part of the Islamic belief system. But Hamas goes even further, saying that “there is no greater patriotism than a situation when the enemy usurps Muslim land.” Therefore, the struggle is waged over its Islamic (not national) identity. Ordinary forms of patriotism evolve out of material and human factors, but the patriotism of Hamas also encompasses “divine factors which endow it with spirit and vitality,” since Hamas “hoists the divine flag in the homeland’s sky in order to link earth and heaven in a powerful bond.” ^[27]

The Egyptian and Syrian Muslim Brethren movements justified their local patriotism by pointing to the central roles their respective countries had played in Islamic history.^[28] Hamas could not follow this model, since Palestine in its present borders has never existed as one political or administrative unit under the various Muslim empires and never housed a major political center. Rather, Hamas articulated a spiritual Islamic meaning for Palestinian identity and patriotism, which stems from the sanctity of Palestine as a holy Islamic land. Another major reason for sanctifying Palestine was the need to refute and perhaps even appropriate Jewish religious claims on the sanctity of the Land of Israel. In some respects, the religious Jewish and Islamic claims on Palestine present mirror images of each other.^[29]

The sanctification of Palestine is not unique to Hamas as a Palestinian movement, but is shared by most Muslim Brethren movements in the Middle East.^[30] However, it does seem to be a recent development. While Hasan al-Banna had spoken of Palestine as the “heart of the Arab world and the knot of the Muslim peoples,” he did not use the same sanctifying terminology as does Hamas.^[31] Moreover, for most other Islamic movements, this issue is secondary to their own domestic agenda, whereas for Hamas it has become a central pillar of its ideology.

The Islamic sanctity of Palestine, according to Hamas, is based on several elements, the most important of which is God’s choice of al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem as the place for the ascension of the Prophet Muhammad to heaven (al-Isra’ wal-Miraj) and as the first qibla (direction of prayer) for the Muslims. The sanctity of al-Aqsa, “the pearl of Palestine,” and of Jerusalem is extended to Palestine as a whole, which is repeatedly called the “land of al-Isra’ wal-Miraj.” The Isra’ and Miraj, Hamas maintains, distinguished Palestine from all other Islamic lands and made it the inheritance of all Muslims. God has chosen al-Aqsa mosque for Muhammad’s ascension to heaven “in order to tie this blessed land to the Prophet,” since he is the heir of this land from earlier prophets.^[32] In no other capital city in the world, states a Hamas handbill, “did an event like the Isra’ wal-Miraj take place except in Jerusalem, so that it would be the sister of Mecca and Medina in history, so that the Muslims will know that abandoning Jerusalem is tantamount to abandoning Mecca and Medina.”^[33]

Few writers go as far as implicitly elevating Jerusalem and Palestine above Mecca and Medina. In explaining Palestine’s position in the hearts of the Muslims, one writer, Ali Muqbil, cites the 8th-century Jerusalem religious scholar, Thawr b. Yazid’s (d. 135/770) description of concentric circles of sanctity which start from the holiest one, the rock from which Muhammad ascended to heaven; the Temple Mount (Jabal al-Masjid); Jerusalem; Palestine; Sham (geographic Syria); and finally the whole world. Another frequent contributor to Filastin al-Muslima, ‘Abd al-Hafiz ‘Alawi, depicts Palestine as part of the Islamic faith, “the heart of the world in general and of the Islamic world in particular.” It is the epitome of Islam and its symbol in the world. Without its heart, Palestine, the Islnation would be dead historically and culturally. God has chosen Palestine as the land of divine missions, particularly Islam and Christianity.^[34]

The sanctity of Palestine is also evident by the various names awarded to it in the Islamic tradition such as the “Blessed Land,” ^[35] “the Holy Land” (Surat al-Ma’ida: 21-22); The Land of Ribat (Islamic frontier) and Jihad; the Land of the First Qibla; and the Land of the Gathering and Resurrection, based on the tradition that the dead will gather in Jerusalem on Resurrection Day.^[36]

In extending the sanctity of Jerusalem to all of Palestine, Hamas revived traditions which go back to the early period of Islam. The term “the holy land” is first mentioned in the Qur’an (Surat al-Ma’ida: 21) in relation to the Jews, when Moses spoke to the children of Israel about his entry there, and not to Muhammad’s Isra’. It reappeared in early Islamic literature with the development of a concept of its sanctity as the land of the prophets where God revealed himself. The borders of the holy land, however, were not defined. Most often it was perceived as extending from the Euphrates in the north to Sinai and the Hijaz in the south, from the desert to the sea. Gradually the term Sham (Geographic Syria) replaced the term “holy land,” a phenomenon manifested inter alia with the appearance of the literature of Fada’il al-Sham (The Praises of Sham) rather than Fada’il Filastin (The Praises of Palestine), parallel to the literature on Fada’il al-Quds (Praises of Jerusalem).^[37] Indeed, various Hamas writers acknowledge that these names apply to the entire Sham and not just to Palestine, but they do not see any problem with it, since it corresponds with their pan-Islamic ideals as well.

The second major component in Palestine’s sanctity, according to Hamas, is its designation as a waqf by the Caliph‘Umar ibn al-Khattab. When the Muslim armies conquered Palestine, the Hamas Covenant states, the Caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab decided not to divide the conquered land among the victorious soldiers, but to establish it as a waqf, an inalienable religious endowment.^[38] This assertion, however, somewhat diminishes Palestine’s distinctiveness since, as Hamas says, every land conquered by the Muslims is a waqf. More importantly, as a waqf, Palestine does not belong only to the Palestinians or the Arabs, but to the entire Muslim nation until the day of resurrection.^[39] Hamas presents this point as a major argument against any compromise with Israel, saying that no Muslim party or leadership, Palestinian or otherwise, has the right to concede even an inch from Palestine, neither in this generation nor in any generation in the future.^[40]

The depiction of Palestine as a waqf constitutes an “invention of tradition,” since it had no legal basis in the Sharia. Lands conquered by the Muslims were considered “dar al-Islam,” (the abode of Islam), that is a place where sovereignty belongs to the Muslims, and the Shari‘a prevails. But no country has legal status as waqf. A similar attempt to endow a special religious significance to Palestine was made by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, in a 1935 ruling (fatwa) which described Palestine as a trust (amana) entrusted by God and all the Muslims to the Muslims of Palestine. The threat of Palestinian concessions over parts of Palestine as part of a political settlement with Israel, and possibly also counter-claims by radical Jewish groups on the sanctity of the land, prompted Hamas to elevate Palestine from a trust to a waqf.^[41]

The Islamization of the Past

Every national movement—the Palestinian national movement included —views and shapes the past according to its current goals and aspirations, often using the past as a tool in contemporary political controversies.^[42] Arab nationalist historiography has always argued that the inhabitants of the entire Middle East from the time of antiquity have been Arabs, who had emigrated from the Arabian Peninsula, explaining that the 7th-century Islamic conquest was therefore an act of liberation from the Byzantine and Persian yoke.^[43] Palestinian historiography in recent years has exerted great efforts to demonstrate that within this larger Arab milieu, Palestine and the Palestinians maintained distinct features and identity throughout history. In addition to the need to shape a collective national memory, this historiographical effort was largely motivated by the need to refute Zionist claims on Palestine. By establishing a claim to the land pre-dating the Israelite settlement, this historiography sought to demonstrate the Arab and Palestinian nature of Palestine, which was preserved thanks to the historical continuity of the Palestinians on their land.^[44]

The advent of the Islamic movements as a major political factor in Palestinian politics has led to the emergence of an Islamist narrative of Palestinian history. A major point of dispute between nationalist and Islamist narratives of history in the Arab world was their respective attitude toward the pre-Islamic past. The nationalists, often under the guidance of the state, incorporated this past in the national heritage in order to enhance the legitimacy of the territorial nation-state. By contrast, the Islamist historians regarded this period as Jahili—the dark age of ignorance before Islam— and rejected any positive reference to it as inimical to Islam and narrowly parochial.^[45] The historical version articulated by Hamas is not aimed at disputing the nationalist-secular narrative so much as to refute Jewish claims and to provide the historical justification for opposing any compromise on Palestine. Hence, it overcomes the problem of the pre-Islamic past by arguing that Palestine had been an Islamic land since the time of the patriarch Abraham.

Islamist writers on history stress the link between the study of history and the present struggle of the Palestinian people. According to the Islamist historian Abd al-Fattah al-‘Uwaysi, most of the available historical studies on Palestine, particularly those dealing with the pre-Islamic period, are limited to the Biblical and Orientalist genres. Consequently, the history of Palestine was subject to distortions and fabrications by the enemies of Islam and the Palestinians.^[46] The legal and human rights of the Muslims to Palestine, argues Nabil Shabib, a frequent contributor to Filastin al-Muslima, are all secondary to their religious-historical rights. “Have you ever seen a country in this world whose history has been so rich as Palestine’s?” writes Kamal Rashid. Has any country ever been coveted by so many nations and conquerors as Palestine? The right of the Muslims to Palestine is “a firm historical religious right which does not cease or diminishes, which stems from our affiliation with Islam.” It is therefore, writes Shabib elsewhere, a historical, cultural, human and legal right as understood by international law.^[47]

Palestine, according to the Islamist version, is the land where the first contact took place between heaven and earth, between the divine and human, through the monotheistic message delivered through the patriarch Ibrahim (Abraham). Ibrahim, an Arab from the tribes in Babil, was a Hanif (true believing) Muslim, and not a Jew as the Jews falsely claim. It was he who had built the mosque of al-Aqsa prior to Muhammad, thereby making Palestine an Islamic land from that time onward. Ibrahim spent his life preaching for Islam in Iraq, Palestine and Egypt, even before there was one Israeli or Jew in the world. The Jews claim descent from Ibrahim, but in fact the children of Israel (Banu Isra’il) are descendants from Jacob, not from Ibrahim. Moreover, since they falsified Ibrahim’s teaching, there is no link between them and the three Prophets Ibrahim, Ishaq and Ya‘qub.^[48] By pronouncing Ibrahim as a Muslim, Hamas readapts the classical Islamic view in order to serve current ideological needs. In the past, Ibrahim had been mentioned only as the first pure monotheist who struggled against idolatry, but had not been deemed a full-fledged Muslim.^[49]

As the land of many prophets, Hamas contends, God blessed Palestine, and so did the Prophet in many traditio.^[50] Hamas believes that the Islamic conquest at the time of the Rightly Guided Caliphs was a continuation of the Islamic rule which had prevailed under the kingdoms of David and Solomon. These had been Islamic kingdoms in which the prophets of God had ruled according to the course set by God. King Solomon had built the temple so it would serve as a mosque for God, “so that he and the believers among the Children of Israel would pray in it, not that it would serve as a Jewish Talmudic racist temple as the Jews now claim.” Therefore, says one writer, “we the Muslims are the heirs of the great state of monotheism, the state of Da’ud and the state of Sulayman, peace upon them.” According to Islamic law these prophets, as well as the prophets of the Children of Israel who followed them, were Muslims who believed in one God, and they have no link whatsoever with the “killers of the prophets” and their descendants, i.e. the Jews.^[51]

One example of the articulation of national-historical concepts in response to the perceived claims of the adversary is the sanctification of the area between the Nile and the Euphrates. Thus, Salah al-Khalidi, a frequent contributor to Filastin al-Muslima, explains that the Nile and Euphrates are holy Islamic rivers which the Prophet had seen in his ascension to heaven in Jerusalem, and not Jewish rivers which define the borders of the land promised by God to Abraham as the Jews claim. The land between them, he says, which encompasses several countries from Egypt to Iraq, “is an Islamic land, a holy blessed land as mentioned in the Qur’an and not the Jewish promised land.” This holy blessed land “has been the land of belief and Islam ever since the beginning of history to the day of Judgement.” Many former peoples (aqwam) lived on this land, and sought to occupy it, but the presence of disbelief there has been ephemeral, whereas the Islamic presence is eternal. “There is no Palestinian land, or Jordanian land or Syrian land, nor a regional (iqlimiyya) or national (qawmiyya) Arab land,” but it is an Islamic land of belief, he concludes, thereby diminishing the distinct Palestinian element in favor of the broader Islamic one.^[52]

The period of Muslim rule in Palestine (from 638 to 1917) is of less interest to this essay because it played a similar role for both the nationalist and Islamist versions of history in proving the Arab-Islamic character of the land. The major difference between them is that the nationalist school describes persons and events as part of Arab history, while the Islamist version defines them as Islamic. Thus a review article in Filastin al-Muslima of the Encyclopaedia Palaestina, which had been published by the PLO, condemns the editors for ignoring or distorting the Islamic-religious dimension of Palestine, by leaving out the prophets, messengers, caliphs, sahaba (companions of the Prophet), the zuhad (ascetics) and pious believers from the history of Palestine.^[53] Even while discussing Islamic history as a whole, several Islamist writers find some distinction for Palestine as the coveted prize for enemies of Islam and as a “launching point” for the Muslim armies during the early Muslim conquests.^[54] The many conquests that Palestine had experienced throughout history, the struggle with Zionism, and Palestine’s tight links to Islam, led Kamal Rashid to the conclusion that Palestine is a like a jewel in the hands of the Arabs and Muslims, but it turns into “burning coal” in the hands of aggressors and occupiers.^[55]

The Islamist prism has also led Hamas to reassess the role of the Ottoman Empire in Arab and Palestinian history. Arab nationalist historiography had been critical of the Ottoman Empire as an oppressive state responsible for Arab decline. By contrast, Palestinian Islamist historiography stresses the Ottoman restoration of Islamic political unity to the region after the disintegration of the Abbasid Caliphate, and the Ottoman protection of the region from Western encroachments for several hundred years. More importantly, it praises Sultan Abdülhamid as a truly Muslim ruler who worked for Islamic unity, and as one of the first to recognize the Jewish-Zionist threat to Palestine and Islam.^[56] Likewise, the Palestinian Muslim Brethren deplored the 1916 Arab Revolt against the Ottomans since it paved the way for Britain’s entry to the Middle East and for the Balfour Declaration. Had the Ottomans won, the Arabs and Palestinians would have been spared foreign conquest, they concluded. In other words, secularism and nationalism are to be blamed for the Palestinian predicament.^[57]

When discussing the modern period, the Islamist version of history highlights the role of Shaykh Izz al-Din al-Qassam— killed by the British in 1935—as the religious leader who launched the first armed jihad against the British and the Zionists. Interestingly, the nationalist school glosses over Qassam’s Syrian birthplace, since that fact might undermine his Palestinian credentials. Hamas, in contrast, uses his Syrian origins to demonstrate the unifying force of Islam.^[58] Likewise, in a series of articles on the 1936-39 rebellion in Palestine, the Hamas writers stress the leading role of Qassam’s followers, who combined religious and patriotic activities.^[59] A major reason for Hamas’s highlighting of Qassam’s leading role is to answer accusations by the PLO of the inaction of the Islamic groups in the Palestinian national struggle. Thus Hamas draws a direct line between its activities and those of al-Qassam, while ignoring the period in between.^[60]

Finally, Hamas Islamizes the Intifada by depicting it as a jihad which started from the mosques by divine will in order to foil all attempts to impose capitulationist settlements on the Palestinian cause. The Intifada broke out after twenty years of Israeli occupation, after a prolonged period of spiritual preparation from which a new generation emerged, imbued with firm Islamic consciousness. It confirmed the return of the Palestinian people to its “authentic Islamic identity and affiliation.” ^[61] In addition, Hamas presents the Intifada as the last link in a long chain of holy wars for the sake of Islam. The Intifada activists are called, the descendants of great Muslim military commanders Abu ‘Ubayda, Khalid ibn al-Walid, and Salah al-Din, who had conquered Palestine and Syria from the infidels in the earlier Islamic period—“the mujahidun (holy warriors) and murabitun (frontier warriors) of every generation till the Day of Judgment.” The chanting of the call “Allah Akbar” and the reading of the Qur’an, are also described as part of the Palestinian struggle. Finally, the aim of the struggle is “to hoist Allah’s flag” over the land. ^[62]

The Islamization of the national struggle encompasses popular culture as well. Hamas calls for the cultivation of Islamic songs and literature of the Intifada. Such songs, which are Islamic both in music and content, are intended to endow Palestinian popular culture with an Islamic essence, and to link the particular Palestinian struggle with the wider Islamic wave in the Muslim world. One such writer, Ibrahim Haris, defines Islamic music as that which draws inspiration from Sufi music. Islamic popular culture, he explains, constitutes opposition and resistance to the official—state inspired—Arab culture. At stake, then, is the domination of Palestinian culture, as part of the broader political struggle that is waged between Hamas and the PLO organizations.^[63]                    

The logical conclusion of the Islamization of Palestine and its past is the complete merging of Palestinian identity with Islam by making Islam the principal component of Palestinian identity. Indeed, Hamas repeatedly uses the terms “the Muslim Palestinian people,” or the Palestinian mujahid (holy warrior) people. “Thanks to its Islamic essence,” the Palestinian people was able “to withstand all storms and turbulent waves and remained firm and awake,” writes Kamal Rashid.^[64]

This convergence raises the problem of the role of the Palestinian Christians, particularly when Hamas presents itself as the movement of all Palestinian masses, both Muslims and Christians. In an effort to demonstrate Palestinian naunity between Muslims and Christians, Hamas cancelled a general strike planned on 9 January 1990, in order not to disrupt the Greek Orthodox Christmas celebration. Likewise, in one handbill, Hamas called upon the believers to visit the houses of their Christian neighbors and congratulate them on the occasion of Christmas of 1991, thereby proving “the unity of the sons of our people.” It also condemned the seizure by Israeli settlers of property belonging to the Greek Orthodox church, which it termed “an aggression against the Christian members of our Palestinian people.” ^[65]

Such statements stand in sharp contrast to the hostility of the Muslim Brethren toward Christians in other Arab countries. It was probably motivated by the need to mobilize all national resources to the struggle against Israel, and in order to refute the PLO’s claims that Hamas’ stress on the Islamic essence of Palestine undermines Palestinian national unity.^[66] Hamas solves the contradiction between these statements on the Christians and the position of doctrinal Islam by describing the Christians in Palestine as “Muslims, whether by religion or culture.” The Christians, it explains, are Muslims by their civilization and culture even if not by religion. They lived on this land side by side with the Muslims and enjoyed the shadow of justice, liberty and equality under the rule of the Islamic state, which opened a golden age in their history.^[67]

Hamas explains further that the Christians of Palestine are different from the Christians of the West in their history and way of life, even though they share the same religion. They suffered equally with the Muslims from Western aggression and imperialism ever since the crusades and in modern times as well. They also lived with the Muslims “as one body” in the face of Zionist and Western attempts “to raise doubts and suspicions on Islam and tarnish it with so-called sectarianism.” ^[68]

Such conciliatory statements, however, are rare and might create a false impression that Hamas has been willing to compromise its Islamic ideology, particularly when its actions did not always conform with this tolerant exposition.^[69] Hamas makes it very clear that its ultimate goal is the establishment of the state of Islam on the land of Palestine with the complete dominance of Islam over legislation, customs and laws. Hamas also stresses that only under the dominion of Islam can Muslims, Christians and Jews live in peace and security.^[70] In other words, Hamas proposes that the Christians of Palestine live as dhimmis under benevolent Islamic rule, and not as equal members of the national community.

Palestinian Identity, Arabism and Pan-Islam

Multiple collective identities are not mutually exclusive. Hence, the enhanced Palestinian orientation of Hamas brought about a certain change in its attitude towards the other components of Palestinian collective identity—Arabism and pan-Islam—which was different from the original concept formulated by the Muslim Brethren. Hasan al-Banna incorporated pan-Arabism within his Islamic ideology in view of Arabism’s growing appeal in Egypt at the time. By contrast, Hamas is active at a period when pan-Arabism has lost much of its allure. The challenge confronting the Islamic movements has been the consolidation of the territorial nation states and the triumph of selfish raison d’état over pan-Arab solidarity.

Like other Muslim Brethren movements, Hamas sees the Arab nation as the natural leader of Islam and the Muslims, and stresses Arab uniqueness within Islam. Likewise, while extolling the uniqueness of Palestine and endorsing Palestinian identity, Hamas states that the Palestinians are an integral part of the Arab nation, and resents the elevation of the particularist Palestinian element at the expense of the Arab whole. On one occasion, Hamas’s official spokesmen, Ibrahim Ghawsha, even dismissed both the Palestinian and Jordanian particularist political alternatives while stressing the Islamic one. “There were no borders in our Arab and Islamic history, they are something new,” he said, charging the rival al-Fatah organization of “overemphasizing the Palestinian identity.” “I myself am a Jordanian, and there are no differences between us,” he stated.^[71]

In expressing its aspiration that the Palestinian people maintain its distinctive identity and personality, Hamas stresses that this identity should possess the components of cultural unity and integration with all Arab and Islamic peoples.^[72] The integration of Palestinian distinctiveness within the larger Arab whole is shown in the commemoration of dates from Palestinian history, such as the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, but also of days pertaining to non-Palestinian Arab history, such as the 1956 “aggression” of Britain, France and Israel against Egypt.

Yet, Hamas activists see Arab nationalism as a hollow idea when it is taken out of the Islamic context. If we remove the idea of Arab nationalism from its regional dimension, says Mahmud al-Zahhar, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, we will see that there was no such thing in Arab history. And if we take Islam out of the history of Arabism “nothing remains but a few folk tales such as Antar and Abla.” ^[73]

According to Zahhar, modern Arabism was the outcome of the efforts of Western-educated people, most of them Christians [emphasis mine], to search for an alternative to Islam. They wanted to put their ideas into practice, but could not find any social program except Marxism. The failure of the Marxist experiment in the USSR left them with no alternative, he concludes, since the masses in the Arab world and secular patriotism are in two opposing camps. The great mistake of present-day Arabs and Muslims was the attempt to supplant the narrower framework of identity for the larger one, that is to regard Arab nationalism as an alternative to the greater Islamic nation. Patriotism (wataniyya) seeks to narrow it even further. The Islamists, on the other hand, seek to broaden this framework of identity into the universal body of Islam.^[74]

Nevertheless, with greater Arab fragmentation, Hamas saw some merits in pan-Arabism after all. According to ‘Abd al-Hafiz Alawi, the Arab nationalist discourse placed the Palestinian problem as the central Arab problem. Nowadays, with pan-Arabism all but abandoned, the Palestinian problem is treated as if it concerns only the PLO rather than the entire Arab nation. There is an organized brain-washing campaign to discard the pan-Arab factor and regard it as a blunder which cost the Arab mini-states (duwaylat) a great deal of time and energy and deprived them of economic and cultural benefits. ‘Alawi attributes this development to Western policy, which seeks to undermine pan-Arabism, distort it and replace it with individual states. They would later deteriorate into “regional” and finally to “tribal, clannish” formations, the same situation in which had prevailed before the rise of Islam.^[75]

‘Alawi explained elsewhere that the demise of the concept of one Arab-Islamic nation under one government has led to conflicts between the Arabs, and was also accompanied by the suppression of the Islamic movements, the only genuine force that worked for unity. Unless the Arabs return to Islam, this process might lead to total disintegration of the Arab lands and to the domination of the Middle East by the Jews. Therefore, the Arab-Islamic dimension is the antithesis to this Jewish scheme, and its fate is the core of the struggle, he concludes.^[76]

Like the Egyptian Muslim Brethren, Hamas reconciles the tension between its enhanced Palestinian orientation and adherence to the pan-Islamic ideal by making a distinction between the short term-goal—the complete liberation of Palestine and the establishment of an Islamic state in Palestine—and the long-term goal of universal Islamic state and the restoration of the Caliphate. Hamas believes that the current Islamic resurgence in the Arab world renders the hope of Islamic unity realistic and attainable, describing the present age as “the period of the labor-pains of the Caliphate.” ^[77] The Intifada itself plays an important role in this process by returninthe Palestinians back to their full Islamic identity and by rallying the Muslims all over the world behind the Palestinian struggle.^[78]

Hamas spokesmen appear to be aware of the skepticism within Palestinian society as to the prospects of Islamic unity. Yet Hamas stresses that it is an attainable imperative and not just a dream. For instance, Mahmud al-Zahhar argued that the “Palestinians had always been part of a pan-Islamic state, and there has never been in history a Palestinian state.” He contrasted the brilliant Muslim past under one state with the bleak present of the divided Arab nation, arguing that “the system of separate states has completely failed.” He pointed to the formation of the European Union as an expression of a world-wide phenomenon to which the Muslims should return now. The attempt to unify the Arabs on a secular basis by President ‘Abd al-Nasir had failed, he said, and the time had come to try unity based on Islam. Elsewhere, Zahhar explained that if “in the age of the donkey and camel,” one Caliph had ruled the Muslim nation from Damascus or Baghdad, then today, with modern communications and transportation, the task would be even easier.^[79]

Hamas’s advocacy of pan-Islam is largely motivated by Palestinian considerations. Hamas acknowledges that its jihad cannot suffice to liberate Palestine. Rather, the liberation of Palestine is linked to three circles: the Palestinian, the Arab and the Islamic. Each has its role in this struggle, and it would be a major mistake to ignore any of them. Therefore, Hamas expresses the hope that its perception of the conflict, as a jihad, will make every Muslim or Arab responsible for the rescue of Palestine. It will confront such believers with religious responsibilities and nationalist (qawmiyya) commitments that compel action. Success in the struggle for Palestine requires the unification of the efforts of the Islamic nation and the fusion of its energy in a coordinated plan.^[80]

The jihad for the liberation of Palestine would drive the mobilization of the Islamic nation and its unification under the banner of a single Islamic Caliphate. The great goal of liberating Palestine would require a massive Islamic effort, which the world-wide Islamic movement would channel into changing the political map in the Arab and Islamic homeland. Freedom and independence in the great Islamic homeland must be based on the centrality of Palestine, Hamas states. Jerusalem, therefore, will be the starting point for the dream of liberation and the takeoff of the entire Muslim nation, since the Jerusalem dream is “the call of tawhid (unity of God) and construction.” The path of Hamas would serve as the proper basis for true liberation throughout the Arab lands, led by the Islamic movement, which would free the Arab masses from corrupt regimes and subordination to imperialism.^[81] Once the supra-national Islamic state emerges, argue various Hamas spokespersons, Jerusalem will serve as “a new capital for Islam and the Muslims all over the world.”^[82] Such a view, which elevates Jerusalem above Mecca, constitutes an abrupt departure from the status accorded to Jerusalem vis-à-vis Mecca in earlier periods.

In a certain fashion, the elevation of Jerusalem to this new status completes the ideological circle. Initially, Hamas endorsed and Islamized Palestinian nationalism in order to appeal to wider constituencies. While rejecting nationalist ideology as such, it viewed it as a means to advance its Islamic agenda. Yet, paradoxically, this very process has led to the draping of the original pan-Islamic ideal with so much Palestinian cloth, that Hamas appears now to have almost subordinated Islamic unity to Palestinian symbols and meaning. Overall, however, this Palestinization of Islam remains secondary to the dominant discourse of Islamizing Palestine.

Notes