The Battle that Changed the Middle East Forever—500 Years Ago

Tuesday marked the 500th anniversary of the battle of Marj Dabiq, which took place just outside the Syrian town where, according to a tradition adopted by Islamic State, an apocalyptic battle is yet to take place. Akhilesh Pillalamarri explains how the confrontation, in which the Sunni Ottoman empire defeated Mamluk Egypt, shaped the subsequent history of the Middle East:

The Mamluk sultanate had been the dominant power of the Islamic world for three centuries, ruling over a stable heartland in Egypt as well as over the holy cities of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, while much of the rest of the Islamic world was fractured and in a chaotic state of warfare in the aftermath of the Mongol invasions. . . .

The Mamluk sultanate collapsed soon [after its defeat at Marj Dabiq, and thereafter] Egypt became an Ottoman province. Additionally, control over the Hejaz passed to the Ottomans, with the sharif of Mecca transferring his allegiance from the Mamluk to the Ottoman sultans. Most importantly, [the Ottoman sultan formally took the title of caliph]. . . .

[Thereafter, the] Ottoman empire became much more resolutely Sunni as a result of gaining control over the caliphate and millions of new Sunni Arab subjects. . . . In religious matters, the empire innovated little and was generally ill-disposed toward Shiites. The caliphate, in fact, became an ever more important institution, a rallying point for Muslims during the spread of European colonialism.

Thus, the conservatism of much of the region and the use of Islam as [the ideological basis for resistance to European influence] date from Ottoman times. On the other hand, the union of imperial Ottoman power and wealth with religious functions also alienated many Arabs from the caliphate. Puritanical reactions culminated in the rise of the Wahhabi movement in central Arabia in the 18th century.

Read more at National Interest

More about: Egypt, History & Ideas, Islam, Middle East, Ottoman Empire

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society