Pab-Arabist, pan-Islamist Emir Shakib Arslan, Nax3usm and the Husseinis

Submitted by Charles (United States), Dec 12, 2022 at 19:07

After refusing at first, finally in 1939, Hitler granted Arslan a so-called "honorary aryan" status, after heading a Syrian nationalist propaganda service in Geneva for a few years.

The Palestine Post⁩, 16 October 1939⁩

[https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/pls/1939/10/16/01/article/65/]

EMIR SHAKIB ARSLAN AN "HONORARY GERMAN "

BEIRUT . — A full account has now appeared in the local of press of the visit paid to Germany by the Emir Shakib Arslan, who for the past few years has headed a Syrian nationalist propaganda service in Geneva. The visit was described by the German broadcasting stations as evidence of Arab sympathy for Germany.

According to reliable Swiss newspaper reports quoted in the local presa the Emir met only some of the minor Nazi leaders. It is reported that Hitler at first refused to authorise the grant to him of the honorary German citzenship on the grounds that he was a Semite.

In Berlin, the Emir met another honorary aryan the notorious Baron von Oppenheim who managed the German espionage service in Arab countries during the World War.

Local comment is highly newspaper is unflattering to Shakib Arslan who is thought to have traded in what remains of his political integrity for a cash grant calculated to make it easier for him to maintain an expensive establishment in Geneva, where sympathizers have lately been few and far between.

Emir Shakib Arslan [شكيب أرسلان‎] left hus Druze community, attached himself with fascism, in close contacts with Arab leaders on Mandatory Palestine especially with the Husseinis.

‫אסף‬‎, ‫מ‬‎. (1967). ‫תולדות התעוררות הערבים בארץ־ישראל ובריחתם‬‎. Israel: ‫תרבות וחינוך : בשיתוף עם הוצאת דבר‬‎. עמ' 129.

Assaf, M. (1967). The history of the awakening of the Arabs in Palestine and their escape. Israel: culture and education: in collaboration with Devar publishing house. p. 129.

[https://books.google.com/books?id=70cJAQAAIAAJ&q=%22%D7%91%D7%AA%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A4%D7%94+%D7%94%D7%94%D7%99%D7%90+%D7%A0%D7%98%D7%AA%D7%94+%D7%94%D7%AA%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%A2%D7%94+%D7%94%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%99%D7%AA+%D7%90%D7%9C+%D7%94%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%97%D7%95%D7%AA%22]

בתקופה ההיא נטתה התנועה הערבית אל הכוחות הפאשיסטיים באירופה, שהתחזקו מאוד עם תפוס הנאצים את השלטון בגרמניה. הסוכן הערבי הפאשיסטי-נאצי הראשי היה האמיר הדרוזי שכיב ארסלאן, שעזב את עדתו הדתית הצרה והצטרף ב־1919/ 20 לתנועת ה"איסתיקלאל" הסורית הפאן-ערבית, ומאז התמידו יחסיו ההדוקים עם מנהיגים ערבים בארץ-ישראל וביחוד עם החוסיינים.At that time, the Arab movement leaned towards the fascist forces in Europe, which became very strong when the Nazis seized power in Germany. The main fascist-Nazi Arab agent was the Druze emir Shakib Arslan, who left his narrow religious sect and joined the pan-Arab Syrian "Istiqlal" movement in 1919/20, and since then his close relations with Arab leaders in the Land of Israel and especially with the Husseins have persisted.

He was one of the key figures of Arab nationalist thought and pan-Arab and -Muslim activism in the interwar period.

Wien, P. (2017). Arab Nationalism: The Politics of History and Culture in the Modern Middle East. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. p.63.

[https://books.google.com/books?id=9CglDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA63]

As seen, Shakib Arslan, one of the key figures of Arab nationalist thought and pan-Arab and -Muslim activism in the interwar period, published his book al-Hulal al-sundusiyya only a few years later and dedicated it to "paradise lost."

At the Nazi Arabic publication (1939-1944) Barid Al Sharq ([بريد الشرق]: Orient Post, published in Berlin, distributed in Mandatory Palestine and in Arab countries.

Motadel, D. (2014). Islam and Nazi Germany's War. United Kingdom: Harvard University Press. p.88.

Articles in Barid al-Sharq, dominated by the usual anti-British, anti-Communist, and anti-Jewish agitation, also drew on religious themes...
Contributors included the Lebanese pan-Islamist Shakib Arslan and Abdurreshid Ibrahim, who, after his service for Germany during the First World War, had now become imam of the Tokyo Mosque, giving the paper a further pan-Islamic tinge.

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