This thesis explores the role of metropolitan religious values and discourses in influencing British officials' discourse on Sunni and Shi'i Islam in early mandate Iraq. It also explores the role that this discourse played in informing the policy decisions of British officials. I argue that British officials thought about and described Sunni and Shi'i Islam through a lens of religious values and experiences that led British officials to describe Shi'i Islam as prone to theocracy and religious and intellectual intolerance, traits that British officials saw as detrimental to their efforts to create a modern state in Iraq. These descriptions ultimately led British officials to take active steps to remove Shi'i religions leaders from the civic discourse of Iraq and to support an indigenous government where Sunnis were given most government positions in spite of making up a minority of the overall population of Iraq. This study draws on documents created by British officials serving in Iraq from 1919-1922, including official reports and correspondence, published government reports, personal correspondence and memoirs. It also draws on biographies of British officials, the secondary literature on religion and civil society in Great Britain, and the secondary literature on Shi'i Islam in Iraq. I engage in the historiography surrounding European Imperial perceptions of Islam and argue that historians should pay greater attention to the role that metropolitan religious experiences and values played in informing the way that imperial officials differentiated between different groups within Islam. I also engage in the historiography of British policy in mandate Iraq, offering a deeper view of how British discourse on Shi'i Islam developed and how this discourse influenced the policy decisions of British official. / Master of Arts / This thesis explores British officials’ perceptions of Shi‘i Islam in early mandate Iraq from 1919- 1923. It argues that British officials applied their personal ideas about the proper relationship between church and state, influenced by debates in Great Britain, to their duties in Iraq. As a result, British officials made comparisons between Sunni and Shi’i Islam which led them to perceive Sunni Islam and Sunni Iraqis as more compatible with the British vision of a modern Iraqi state and society. These perceptions in turn led British officials to actively combat the political efforts of Shi‘i religious leaders and to create and support a national government made up of minority Sunnis. This study helps us understand how British officials differentiated between different strands of Islam. It also contributes to our understanding of how British officials in early mandate Iraq came to enact policies that would have a long-lasting influence on the future of statecraft and politics in Iraq. This study draws on documents created by British officials serving in Iraq from 1919-1922, including official reports and correspondence, published government reports, personal correspondence and memoirs. It also draws on biographies of British officials, previous research on religion and civil society in Great Britain, and previous research on Shi‘i Islam in Iraq.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/90669 |
| Date | 26 June 2019 |
| Creators | Furrow, Heath A. |
| Contributors | History, Gitre, Carmen M. K., Agmon, Danna, Shadle, Brett L. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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