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Pan-Arabism (Arabic:الوحدة العربية,romanized: al-waḥda al-ʿarabiyyah,lit. 'Arab unity') is apan-nationalist ideology that espouses the unification of allArab people in a singlenation-state, consisting of all Arab countries ofWest Asia andNorth Africa from theAtlantic Ocean to theArabian Sea, which is referred to as theArab world.[1][2] It is closely connected toArab nationalism, which asserts the view that the Arabs constitute a singlenation. It originated in the late 19th century among the Arab regions of theOttoman Empire, and its popularity reached its height during the peak ofNasserism andBa'athism in the 1950s and 1960s. Advocates of pan-Arabism have often espousedArab socialist principles and stronglyopposed the political involvement of theWestern world in the Arab world. It also sought to empower Arab states against outside forces by forming alliances such as theArab League.[3]
The origins of pan-Arabism are often attributed to theNahda (Arab awakening or enlightenment) movement that flourished in the Arab regions of theOttoman Empire in the late 19th century.[4] A prominent figure wasJurji Zaydan (1861–1914), who played a key role in laying the intellectual foundation for Pan-Arabism.[5] Zaydan had critical influence on acceptance of a modernized version of the Quranic Arabic language (Modern Standard Arabic) as the universal written and official language throughout the Arab world, instead of adoption oflocal dialects in the various countries. Zaydan wrote several articles during the early 20th century which emphasized that Arabic-speaking regions stretching from the Maghreb to the Persian Gulf constitute one people with a shared national consciousness and that this linguistic bond trumped religious, racial and specific territorial bonds, inspired in part by his status as aLevantine Christianémigré in 19th century Egypt. He also popularized through his historical novels a secular understanding of Arab history encompassing the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods into a shared history that all Arabs could claim as their own.
As a political project, pan-Arabism was first pressed bySharif Hussein ibn Ali, theSharif of Mecca, who sought independence for theMashreq Arabs from theOttoman Empire, and the establishment of a unified Arab state in the Mashreq. In 1915 and 1916, theHussein-McMahon Correspondence resulted in an agreement between theUnited Kingdom and the Sharif that if the Mashreq Arabs revolted successfully against the Ottomans, the United Kingdom would support claims for Mashreq Arab independence. In 1916, however, theSykes-Picot Agreement between the United Kingdom and France determined that parts of the Mashreq would be divided between those powers rather than forming part of an independent Arab state. When the Ottoman Empire surrendered in 1918, the United Kingdom refused to keep to the letter of its arrangements with Hussein,[6] and the two nations assumed guardianship of Mesopotamia,Lebanon,Palestine and what became modern Syria. Ultimately, Hussein became King of onlyHijaz, in the then less strategically valuable south, but lost hisCaliphate throne when the kingdom was sacked by theNajdiIkhwan forces of theSaudites and forcefully incorporated into the newly created Kingdom ofSaudi Arabia.
A more formalized pan-Arab ideology than that of Hussein was first espoused in the 1930s, notably bySyrian thinkers such asConstantin Zureiq,Sati' al-Husri,Zaki al-Arsuzi, andMichel Aflaq. Aflaq and al-Arsuzi were key figures in the establishment of theArab Ba’ath (Renaissance) Party, and the former was for long its chief ideologist, combining elements ofMarxist thought withnationalism to a considerable extent reminiscent of nineteenth-century European romantic nationalism. It has been said that Arsuzi was fascinated with the Nazi ideology of "racial purity" and impactedAflaq.[7][8][9]
Abdullah I of Jordan dreamed of unitingSyria,Palestine, and Jordan under his leadership in what he would callGreater Syria. He unsuccessfully proposed a plan to this effect to theUnited Kingdom, which controlledPalestine at that time. The plan was not popular among the majority of Arabs and fostered distrust among the leaders of the other Middle Eastern countries against Abdullah. The distrust ofAbdullah's expansionist aspirations was one of the principal reasons for the founding of theArab League in 1945.[10] OnceAbdullah was assassinated by aPalestinian nationalist in 1951, the vision of Greater Syria was dropped from the Jordanian agenda.[3]
Although pan-Arabism began at the time ofWorld War I,Egypt (the most populous and arguably most important Arab country) was not interested in pan-Arabism prior to the 1950s. Thus, in the 1930s and 1940s,Egyptian nationalism – not pan-Arabism – was the dominant mode of expression of Egyptian political activists. James Jankowski wrote about Egypt at the time,
What is most significant is the absence of an Arab component in early Egyptian nationalism. The thrust of Egyptian political, economic, and cultural development throughout the nineteenth century worked against, rather than for, an 'Arab' orientation. ... This situation—that of divergent political trajectories for Egyptians and Arabs—if anything increased after 1900.[11]
It was not untilGamal Abdel Nasser thatArab nationalism (in addition toArab socialism) became a state policy and a means with which to define Egypt's position in the Middle East and the world,[12][13] usually articulated vis-à-visZionism in the neighboring state of Israel.
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There have been several attempts to bring about a pan-Arab state by many well-known Arab leaders, all of which ultimately resulted in failure. British Foreign MinisterAnthony Eden called for Arab unity during the 1940s, and was followed by specific proposals from pro-British leaders, including KingAbdullah of Transjordan and Prime MinisterNuri al-Said of Iraq, but Egyptian proposals for a broader grouping of independent Arab states prevailed with the establishment of the League of Arab States, a regional international organization, in 1945. In large part representing the popularity Nasser had gained among the masses in the Arab world following theSuez Crisis, theUnited Arab Republic (UAR) in 1958 was the first case of the actual merger of two previously-independent Arab countries. Hastily formed under President Nasser's leadership but on the initiative of Syrian leaders who feared a takeover by communists or "reactionaries" and hoped to lead the new entity, the UAR was a unitary state, not a federal union, with its critics seeing this as hardly more than a small country being annexed by a larger one. It lasted until 1961, when Syrian army officers carried out acoup d'état and withdrew from the union. As politicians felt pressured by the wide public to espouse the idea of unity, Egypt, Syria and Iraq entered into an abortive agreement in 1963 to form the United Arab Republic, which was to be "federal in structure, leaving each member state its identity and institutions."[3] By 1961, Egypt had become the only remaining member but continued to call itself "the UAR" (thereby implying it was open for unification with other Arab countries), but it eventually renamed itself the "Arab Republic of Egypt" in 1973.[14]
Also in 1958, aHashemite-led rival, theArab Federation, was founded betweenJordan andIraq. Tensions with the UAR and the14 July Revolution made the Arab Federation collapse after only six months. Another attempt, theUnited Arab States, existed as a confederation between the United Arab Republic and theMutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen, but it dissolved in 1961.
Two later attempts represented the enthusiasm ofLibya'sMuammar Gaddafi, theFederation of Arab Republics, which lasted five years, and theArab Islamic Republic withTunisia, which also aimed to includeAlgeria andMorocco but never emerged in practice. Muammar Gaddafi had talks withChadli Bendjedid in 1988 about forming an Algeria-Libya union.[15] Instead theArab Maghreb Union was formed in 1989. Aside from the forcible unification of much of theArabian Peninsula by the Saudi rulers of Najd during the 1920s, theunity of seven Arab emirates that form theUnited Arab Emirates andthe unification of North Yemen and South Yemen stand today as rare examples of actual unification. The former governments of Iraq and Syria were both led by rival factions of theBa'ath Party, which, until thefall of the Assad regime in 2024, espoused pan-Arabism.
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The decline of pan-Arabism is attributed to several factors. Problems persisted over a wide range of issues since the inception of pan-Arabist philosophy in the late 1800s, which, until its decline, had kept pan-Arabism on course for causal failure. The factors include: the promotion ofpan-Islamism, the sectarian and social differences within the different Arab societies; the competition between different Arab leaders to be the leading voice for the Arab and Islamic worlds; and, to a lesser extent, military defeat against an enemy force.
The promotion of pan-Islamism had been a key aspect within Arab and Muslim societies. Such philosophy dictated for a united Islamic ‘Ummah’ or the close bounding of all Islamic communities to maintain and promote an essence of one family, one cause. The philosophy of pan-Arabism placed itself in contradiction to the philosophy of pan-Islamism as was clarified by religious scholars and Sheikhs within the various Arab countries, especially the Persian gulf. The belief held by critics emphasized that pan-Arabism separated itself from theUmmah in that it only promoted Arab unity and ideals, not Islamic ones. The religious conservatism within the societies propelled pan-Islamism to defeat alternative thoughts such as pan-Arabism.
Various sectarian and social differences within the various Arab societies was another fueling factor for pan-Arabism's decline. SporadicSunni andShia religious divide exacerbated by internal and foreign factors caused reconsideration within Arab circles as to whether pan-Arabism was viable although the issue was religiously oriented. Social differences toed a similar line. Countries likeLebanon andSyria considered secular brought about a clash of thought with the likes of religiousSaudi Arabia, whose longstanding promotion of religion was contradictory to the goals of the secular hierarchy within the two Levantine countries, for example.
Different Arab leaders competed to become the leading voices for the Arab and Islamic worlds. Such competition sporadically resulted in friction between the leaders of these Arab countries. TheUnited Arab Republic, which was formulated byEgypt’sGamal Abdel Nasser andSyria’sShukri al-Quwatli, was promoted to be the collective voice for the Arab world and the spearhead of pan-Arabism. Being the only physical incarnation of pan-Arabism, it did not receive the expected praise from other Arab nations, especially in the Gulf, which further added to the decline of pan-Arabism.
To a lesser extent, the military defeat to “arch-enemy” Israel made both prominent sources of pan-Arabism reconsider such philosophy. TheUnited Arab Republic, consisting ofEgypt andSyria, received ideological burden due to the unfavorable outcome, thus putting pan-Arabism in question. The victory ofIsrael in the 1967Six-Day War and the inability of Egypt and Syria to generate economic growth in some form, also damaged pan-Arabism's credibility. "By the mid-1970s," according toThe Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East, "the idea of Arab unity became less and less apparent in Arab politics, though it remained a wishful goal among the masses."[3]
By the late 1980s, pan-Arabism began to be eclipsed by bothnationalist andIslamist ideologies. Although pan-Arabism lost appeal by the 1990s, it continued to exercise an intellectual hegemony throughout the Arab world.[1]
