This Week, Those Books links the big international story to the world of books and has a few thousand followers on every continent except Antarctica. We aim to provide, in roughly five minutes, crucial context – from fiction and non-fiction – to the shouty, doomscroll news cycle..
The Big Story:
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have signed a military pact that unifies parts of the Muslim world in a strategic consolidation that has faint echoes of Saladin’s efforts in the 12th century.
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed in Islam’s holiest city, was instantly dubbed the ‘Muslim Nato’:
In the style of Nato’s Article 5, it stipulates that an attack against one “shall be regarded as attack on them all”.
Unlike Nato, it does not provide for an integrated military headquarters, a unified command structure and a permanent joint force.
It’s one of the most significant realignments in West Asia in decades, bringing together the world’s only nuclear-armed majority Muslim country, the world’s largest oil exporter and Nato’s second largest military.
As one of our book picks says, alliances treaties are “costly signals” and they “deter threats by informing potential aggressors of the allies’ intention to defend one another”.
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This Week’s Books:
A fictional account of, and by the Muslim world’s favourite hero.
A measured look at what a defence alliance really means.
Here’s another relevant free-to-read post from the archives :
The Book of Saladin: A Novel
By: Tariq Ali
Publisher: Open Road
Year: 1998
Saladin is a hero in the Muslim world for uniting warring Islamic factions to face the Third Crusades, reconquer Jerusalem or al Quds and expel the Europeans or Franj who had taken the city, along with a sizeable section of the eastern Mediterranean, some 90 years before.
In Tariq Ali’s novel, a key quote sums up the situation in Saladin’s day and hints at the 21st century search for unity: “…until there was one caliph as the font of all authority, the Franj would always play on our weaknesses and its rivalries.”
The novel, which is loyal to historical facts and events, paints a portrait of the medieval Middle East that is surprisingly familiar. Shifting alliances between various Islamic states and Christian/European factions result in changing borders and control of cities and kingdoms. Islamic states establish alliances with Christian European entities and defend against opposing Muslim forces.
While a fast-moving adventure story, this book is structured as a recounting of the life of Saladin as told to his scribe Isaac Ibn Yakub. It is a wonderful fictional reconstruction of the life of one of the most charismatic figures in Islamic history. A Kurd, who was born in Tikrit in modern-day Iraq, Saladin achieved a rare feat. For the first time since the major splits in Islam not long after the death of the Prophet, he was able to bring together various sects, regardless of theological disagreements, to face a common enemy.
Choice quotes:
The only story that really moved me as a child was that of al-Kuds. The cruelty of the barbarians was like a poison that makes men mute. Al-Kuds was never absent from our world of make-believe. We used to climb on our horses and pretend we were riding to drive the Franj out of al-Kuds…
That the Franj must be defeated was obvious, but how could we emerge victorious when the camp of the Believers was so bitterly divided? For a start, there were two Caliphs: one in Baghdad who ruled only in name, and another in Cairo, who was weak. The collapse of the Caliphate had led to little kingdoms springing up everywhere.
Arguing about Alliances: The Art of Agreement in Military-Pact Negotiations
By: Paul Poast
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Year: 2019
This book, by a University of Chicago professor, makes a point that’s worth noting in the context of the Pakistan-Saudi-Turkey defence pact. If a treaty negotiation succeeds it should be seen as what it is: the participants are “planning a war together”. This means, Paul Poast writes, the parties are in agreement on the following two items: “(1) against whom and where to use military force and (2) how to engage that target.”
In seeking to explain why some treaty negotiations fail while others succeed, the book offers a way to view the new Mecca Joint Defence Agreement: “While the text of the final treaty may not convey details of a war plan, war planning lies at the core of the talks.”
Clearly, war – its prevention and/or execution – is on the minds of many.
Choice quotes:
…debate over the geographic scope of the [Nato] alliance nearly caused the negotiations to collapse: Could the parties agree on the definition of “North Atlantic”?...France demanded expansion of the southern boundary of the region, to include Italy and French-ruled Algeria. The other participants initially opposed the French demand. What saved these negotiations was that the other participants lacked attractive outside options…
From 1815 to 1945, the international system was multipolar, meaning there were more than two great powers at any one time. In contrast, the majority of the post-1945 period was either a bipolar system of US-Soviet rivalry or a unipolar system of US dominance. But for a host of reasons…today’s world resembles the multipolar system of major power competition that marked the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Back Story:
Defence pacts are in vogue, with the Iran war continuing to roil the region. In February alone, three were signed:
** Egypt and Turkey’s “military cooperation framework”
** France and Bahrain’s “bilateral defence agreement”
** The UAE and South Korea’s “defence cooperation” memorandum of understanding
Five most significant modern defence agreements:
** Warsaw Pact, 1955
** North Atlantic Treaty (Nato), 1949
** Tripartite Pact, 1940
** Entente Cordiale, 1904
** Franco-Russian Alliance, 1892
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Interesting post-particularly the idea that defense alliance= plan for making war together.So who is the Mecca pact aimed toward-Iran,Israel ? other? What does it say about (non) confidence in the US? And how would it respond in an India-Pakistan war?
Minor point-you mention the novel about Saladin was written in the voice of his scribe?Was he
not literate? This would be surprising? Or should we interpret scribe as a kind of secretary?
Thanks for the review of Tariq Ali's novel about Saladin. I didn't know he was Kurdi.