The Neo-Ottomans and the Arab Islamists… Caliphate threatens Europe

Hisham El-Nagar

Published Studies after the Arab-spring revolutions have recommended, to the western decision-making circles, the idea of the conditioned integration for the Islamists.

The studies stipulated the Islamists’ acceptance of consociationalism with secularists. This condition requires trained them to accept the rules of democracy, respect the human rights, freedoms, renouncing violence, diversity of the legislation’s sources and maintains the rights of the religious minorities.

To enter this condition into force, the westerners sought to Islamist force to be as the bridge between the East and West. They aimed to combat terrorism and extremism, through a good Islamic-Western relation, achieving stability in the ME for the various interests of the west.

Erdogan loomed for the western confidence as he was the trusted leader who can tame the Muslim Brotherhood group. That is because he has presented himself in the beginning of his political life as a strong Islamist partner reflects the spirit of democratic modernism in an Islamist style.

After two decades, this path and western choice reflects a lack of knowledge of the nature of the religious movements and currents in the East. Turkey, under the rule of Erdogan and his allies within the political Islamist Movements, has become a bridge of tensions, instead of being the attenuation coefficient of the Islamist hostility to West.  Moreover, features of Neo-Ottomans and Arab Islamists caliphate shaped to threat the European interests.

Currently, Erdogan’s Islamist allies spread the hatred and extremism against the west. In addition to the Turkish sharp shifts against the Western interests through an alliance with Russia and Iran.

Tensions escalate between Europe and Turkey, over the latter exploiting refugee’s crisis and backing terrorists to move to the European countries, in order to achieve its interest. Turkey sought to this malevolence slap to cover the fallen of the political Islam project in the Arab region.

The flow of terrorists into Europe is linked to Erdogan’s and Brotherhood’s promoting to the past conflicts between the West and East. They used the history of the Crusades to escalate these disputes, especially after Turkey fail to join the European Union.

Erdogan … The Neo-Ottoman invader

With the Turkish and Arab Islamists, Erdogan has great aspirations to viciously expand its influence over the Islamic World through the imaginary of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey’s president considers that Muslims throughout the Middle East and Balkans have a desire to restore the empire’s former glory and release the Islamic world from dependency for West.

Erdogan used his alliances with the Islamism political and jihadist organizations as a reprisals and settling of accounts with Europe, after his accusation Europe of participating in the coup attempt, and supporting Fathallah Gulin group. As well as he did not want his new activity to remain in the context of a phased revenge, but among strategic project.

Erdogan considered Europe direct threat to the Turkish national security, this reflected on the Turks’ convictions. In a survey conducted by a think-tank, 87.6 % of participants agreed that “European countries want to divide Turkey”.

Erdogan has promoted the idea of existence a European conspiracy targets Islam, through Western scenario seek to eliminate the unity of the Islamic world. He has tried to rally Muslims behind the Turkish Sultan in defense of religion and sanctities, which produced in his speeches a classification of the world in the way of al-Qaeda, based on the dichotomy “Darusslam and Dar al-Harb or (Dar al-Islam and territory of war)”.

In his previous speeches, Erdogan expressed his emphasis on the historical conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the European countries. He also has claimed that he represents the Islamic world to confront the Western threat.

The Turkish president poses himself as a sole guarantor to save the Islamic identity from the international conspiracy.  He intentionally aims at spreading feelings of hatred and provoking violent reactions against the West.

“A dirty scenario is being carried out to destroy the unity, future, common sense and richness of the Muslim world,” Erdogan said. The Turkish president accused the West of exporting all its historical diseases to the Muslim world.

In his victory speech, Erdogan alluded to his aspiration to be a voice in the West for the Islamic world and Muslims, saying “Believe me, Sarajevo won today as much as Istanbul, Beirut won as much as Izmir, Damascus won as much as Ankara, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, the West Bank, Jerusalem won as much as Diyarbakir”.

Erdogan sought by these sweet, low-crooked words to secure his existence and influence in the ME, to restore the historical extent of the Ottoman Empire.

The intellectual reference of Erdogan’s Caliphate

The alleged Ottoman Empire, Erdogan has utilized the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks to establish an Islamic caliphate, so he developed prosperous relations with them. He also shares them in rejecting the Western civilization and the values of pluralism and democracy.

Erdogan’s Caliphate based on two basic principles, first; the nationalism ideology of Hassan El-Banna, who founded the Brotherhood in 1928, in response to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, to accommodate the goal of restoring the Caliphate in the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology.

The second principle is Sayyid Qutb’s idea, in which he lays out a plan and makes a call to action to re-create the Muslim world on strictly Quranic grounds, casting off what Qutb calls Jahiliyyah. According to Qutb, the Muslim community has been extinct for a few centuries and reverted to Jahiliyyah, so this society and its current governments should be fought.

These two principles allow Erdogan to legitimize overthrowing of the Arab regimes, to replace these regimes with an Islamic caliphate under his leadership.

In order to lead major change projects and lead the political and jihadist Islam in the face of supposed Western conspiracies, Turkey has to establish a complex religious caliphate through tools controlled by Erdogan, starting from the status of the caliphate, which must be transformed into an inspired religious state model. This project based on several axes:

First: Ideologize Turkey

Erdogan sought to reform the ideology and identity of the Turkish people by re-instilling Ottoman heritage within the collective memory by carrying out an internal revolution that would lead to establishing a theocracy ruled an authoritarian state, sought to an expansionist empire.

As an Ottoman sultan, Erdogan practiced his political hegemony and undermine the opponents. He also has stigmatized the opponents with a betrayal of the interests of Turkish people. Freedoms and the values of democracy and pluralism have retreated.

After Turkey became a unitary state, the horror of having a contrary opinion widespread as what happens in Daesh state, as both Turkey and Daesh accuses the opponents with betrayal.

The practices of the Turkish president in power in recent years have the sane ideology roots of Daesh, although he does not appear in the traditional Islamists’ appearance, such as beard.

He is acting as head of one faction of the Turkish people, not all of them. Erdogan has a philosophy similar to that used by the Emirs of terrorist groups. After the last elections, Turkish political is expected to be affected by Daesh with regard to the individualism of power, discrimination against minorities, and the elimination of the citizenship.

It also demanded the reintroduction of compulsory religious education in Turkish basic schools and changes the curriculum of education, religion, and ethics by deleting topics that handle with morality and general virtues.

The concept of jihad also included in the curriculum, after changes approved by the Turkish Minister of Education in early 2017.

Second: Recruits the Arab Islamists

Turkey received the Arab Islamists after the failure of the Islamist party situation in the Arab countries. Erodgan has had two approaches to take: first: the traditional Arab regime based on main basics included Egypt, UAE, KSA, or support the Caliphate project.

Two main factors contributed in the failure of the party experience of the Arab Islamists in their countries. The first is inconsistent with the local Arab situation, which seeks to maintain and protect the state institutions and save its borders and cohesion, while it consistent with the draft of the Caliphate led by Erdogan.

The second was Erdogan’s keenness to benefit from these entities, in the context of his plan to remove his local political rivals.

Hence, Erdogan exploits the frustrations of the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies within the political Islamists, after their failure in power, to promote his alleged Caliphate.

The Islamists, on the other hand, put their last hope on Erdogan and his regime to get out of their major crisis after their isolation from power, and the restriction on their activities in the Arab world.

Third: The Jihadists… the deterrence tool of Erdogan’s Caliphate

Erdogan’s government has maintained the relationship with the Takfiri and Jihadi armed organizations such as Daesh and Al-Qaeda. The current stage is more appropriate than the previous one for the Turkish government to achieve its Caliphate model.

Therefore, the leaders of the Brotherhood promoted to Turkey under the leadership of Erdogan as it represents the hope to save the reputation of the Islamist ideology in general, and the leadership of what they call “Holy Jihad” in the Arab countries, especially after Daesh’ setbacks.

The Brotherhood’s leaders named Erdogan as a historical Islamic leader who has succeeded in eradicating secularism in Turkey. He has succeeded in subjugating the Turkish army to his authority, as well as his challenging to the West and the US.

Erdogan and the Muslim Brotherhood exploit the decline and losses of the jihadi organizations and sought to regional regimes and a strong state to compensate for the defeats they suffered. This is accepted by jihadist circles to complete the Caliphate project.

Summary and recommendations

Turkey and Qatar are responsible for the instability of the security situation in Europe through supporting the political Islam outside their country after the Arab countries tried to absorb it and give it a chance to work in the context of local Arab experiences.

Some Western political and intellectual circles are also responsible for that. This frightening ideological alliance contributed in supporting a Misunderstanding for the nature of the political Islam in the West, especially the Brotherhood, and the truth of its objectives.

The following should be considered:

First, Understanding that The threat of the political and jihadist Islamist, in addition, its sponsors no longer only to the Middle East, but also has reached to Europe, so we have to understand how should we deal with it.

Second, studying the effect of isolating the Brotherhood on its sponsors. The Arab countries hindered the Turkish project, and the isolation of the Muslim Brotherhood within the Arab world was the strongest Arab action to combat Erdogan’s plans.

Third, the efforts of the Arab countries should be supported by the European countries and the USA. The main factor that strengthened the Arab position is their unity to fight such these terrorist groups.

Fourth, respect the Arab league and the other regional organization, as they are the appropriate partner for establishing stability and security in the world.

Fifth: The elimination of terrorism shall be achieved with dismantling the Iranian-Turkish-Qatari ideological alliance and the alliance of the neo-Ottoman Islamists, which targets Arab national security and threatens the security and stability of Europe.