Al-Muthanna Club

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Al-Muthanna Club
Nadi al-Muthanna
Founded 1935
Dissolved 1941
Succeeded by Iraqi Independence Party
Youth wing Al-Futuwwa
Ideology Pan-Arab fascism
Political position Far right
Politics of Iraq
Political parties
Elections

Nadi al-Muthanna (in English al-Muthanna Club) was an influential radical pan-Arab fascist society established in Baghdad ca. 1935 to 1937 which remained active until May 1941, when the coup d'etat of pro-Nazi Rashid Ali al-Gaylani failed.[1] It was named after Al-Muthanna ibn Haritha, an Iraqi Muslim Arab general who led forces that helped to defeat the Persian Sassanids at the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah.[2] Later known as the National Democratic Party, Nadi al-Muthanna was influenced by European fascism and controlled by radical Arab nationalists who, according to 2005's Memories of State, "formed the core of new radicals" for a combined Pan-Arab civilian and military coalition.[3][4]

Saib Shawkat

In 1938, as fascism in Iraq grew, Sami Shawkat, a known fascist and a pan-Arab nationalist, was appointed director-general of education.[5]

The al-Muthanna club, under German ambassador Fritz Grobba's influence, developed a youth organization, the al-Futuwwa, modeled on European fascist lines and on Hitler Youth,[6] it was founded in 1939 by then director-general of Iraq's education (al-Muthanna's co-founder) pan-Arab activist Saib Shawkat, and was and under his guidance.

He is also famous for his 1933 speech "The Manufacture of Death", in which he preached for the highest calling of accepting death for the pan-Arabism cause, he argued that the ability to cause and accept death in pursuit of pan-Arab ideals was the highest calling. It has been said, that Shawkat's path (ideology and military youth movement), influenced the Popular Army and youth organizations of the Baath Party, which appeared much later on.[7]

Yunis al-Sabawi

Yunis al-Sab'awi (يونس السبعاوي) (who translated Hitler's book Mein Kampf into Arabic in the early 1930s) was active in the al-Muthanna club[8] and in the leadership of the al-Futuwwa.[9] He was a deputy in the Iraqi government,[10] minister of economics.[11]

Shawkat, al-Sab'awi had developed strong anti-Jewish (anti-Semitic) sentiments, leading to the tragedy known in colloquial Iraqi Arabic as the (Mufti al-Husayni's inspired[12]) Farhud (Pogrom), as a result, a mob led by al-Muthanna Club members and its youth organization attacked the Jewish community of Baghdad on June 1 and 2, 1941, killing and wounding many Jews.[4] Yunis al-Sabawi planned even a larger slaughter of Jews but it was avoided due to him being deported.[13][14][15]

See also

  • Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
  • Rashid Ali

References

  1. ↑ Party, Government and Freedom in the Muslim world, p. 9
  2. ↑ Edmund Ghareeb, Beth Dougherty. Historical Dictionary of Iraq. Lanham, Maryland, USA; Oxford, England, UK: Scarecrow Press, 2004. Pp. 167, 1.
  3. ↑ The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Volume 4, p. 125, by Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, Johannes Hendrik Kramers, Bernard Lewis, Charles Pellat, Joseph Schacht, 1954,
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Memories of state: politics, history, and collective identity in modern Iraq, by Eric Davis, 2005, page 74,
  5. ↑ Saddam Hussein and the crisis in the Gulf p. 73, Judith Miller, Laurie Mylroie, Biography & Autobiography, Times Books, 1990
  6. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1428511/You-boys-you-are-the-seeds-from-which-our-great-President-Saddam-will-rise-again.html
  7. ↑ Iran, Iraq, and the Arab Gulf States, Joseph A. Kechichian, Gustave E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies, lgrave Macmillan, 2001, p. 84
  8. ↑ Intellectual life in the Arab East, 1890-1939, Center for Arab and Middle East Studies, American University of Beirut, 1981, p. 172
  9. ↑ http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007277
  10. ↑ Documents on German foreign policy, 1918-1945: from the archives of the German Foreign Ministry, H.M. Stationery Off., 1966, p. 566
  11. ↑ Britain's informal empire in the Middle East: a case study of Iraq, 1929-1941, Daniel Silverfarb, Oxford University Press US, 1986, p. 135
  12. ↑ http://www.crethiplethi.com/remembering-the-farhud-the-mufti-inspired-krystallnacht-in-iraq/islamic-countries/iraq-islamic-countries/2010/
  13. ↑ http://www.midrash.org/articles/farhud/
  14. ↑ http://www.dangoor.com/TheScribe11.pdf
  15. ↑ http://www.mideastweb.org/iraqaxiscoup.htm
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