Reddit mentions: The best turkey history books

Thank you everyone for the laughs and the subtle concern. As mentioned here, I've been incredibly busy. This is all good stuff and I'm truly blessed. A few of the goings on:

• I am currently on the east coast for my brother's graduation from US Marine Corps Warrant Officer Basic Course. He enlisted with me in 2005 and has been killing it ever since. Last year he completed his masters degree in electrical engineering from North Carolina State and now he's moving on to be an electronics maintenance officer. I'm incredibly proud and spending as much time as I can with the guy since we've hardly been able to see each other since we both stepped on those yellow foot prints at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego. Picture related.
  
  
• If you're thinking, "Damn, Cody looks skinny." You're right. This is intentional and unfortunately a bit unintentional. I've got some injuries (military) that have been seriously aggravated since the move and early spring they got fired up again. So I've been nursing those and thus training hasn't been exciting at all. In addition to that I had a big wake up call that came in the form of sleep apnea, which of course was weight related. I'm not one to live my life on machines and value my health and independence (thus the cabin) and so I've made a concerted effort to regain my respiratory and cardiovascular health, which brought about the needed weight loss. I'm lighter now than I have been in a long time but I'm happy with it because I'm no longer snoring like a hellbeast and I'm also breathing while sleeping again, whereas I wasn't before, multiple times per hour each night. So while I may not be hyuge right now, at least I'm not suffocating myself to death at night. (My wife is also very thankful.)
  
  
• I had some technical hurdles recently that put a damper on my YouTube production abilities. From this I've purchased a new video camera, whereas before I was using my wife's DSLR video feature. Not nearly as good. Still high quality, but I hope this new camera turns out even better videos than you've seen on my channel previously. As some of you may have noticed already the editing on my channel has improved a little and so has the creativity of the content itself. Whether it's the Bench Press Form Check video or the new Gainsline or Summon the Gainer 3 you'll notice my abilities have gone up. I credit this to doing much more film study and attempting to apply some of those same concepts into a micro adaptation within my YouTube. I get pretty much zero dollars from YouTube because I get so few views, but that's not what it's about for me. I genuinely enjoy making videos and I see this as the next step in advancing my own enjoyment. My only hope is that all of you enjoy them just the same. And please, if you have a request or recommendation please let me know, because I'd like to help the best I can and I'm always eager to learn something new.
  
  
• In addition to the above I'm also taking my own education seriously. Having wrapped up a semester of full time college earlier this month I'm now on summer break and so brings - FREEDOM! If you're wondering, which you're probably not but I'm going to tell you anyways, I got an A,A,B,A this semester across my four classes. None of them being underwater basket weaving or nontraditional interpretative dance therapy. That last A is an elective however, for drawing.
  
  
• To wrap up this update I'm also working on a personal writing project that requires some heavy research. As previously mentioned and well known in these parts, I'm a US Marine. What may not be known so well is that I served as an infantryman (0311) for five years and did another 4.5 as an MCCS Marine (4133). During my near decade on active duty I had four deployments, one to Iraq, two to Afghan, and one aboard ship at sea. Two of those I volunteered for. My last one I fought to go on. My time in the Corp gave me the love of lifting but also the love of studying warfare, in particular insurgencies. I've had my nose deep in the books doing lots of research for a book I plan on writing. Here's bigg'un I just got as a gift from ma and pa and I can't wait to start it. I've already broken a promise to myself on timeline, so who knows when it'll be finished. But I'm happy that I've had the discipline to begin putting paper to pad. When it is finished I hope some of you enjoy it, even though it will be far from the topic of weight lifting. It's fiction and about war, and that's all I will divulge at this time.
  
  Once more, thank you all for the laughs and subtle concern. Thank you /u/linuxuser86 for making this post. If any of you have questions please email me any time: clgz@ymail.com
  

I'm an American currently sitting in a hotel room in Dahab - it's totally fine. North Sinai, around Arish/close to the Gaza Strip is the portion that is a bit dicey, but even that's pretty much under control. I flew from Cairo to Sharm El-Sheikh and then took an 45 minute taxi ride through the beautiful mountain desert. Dahab is a bit of a hippie beach town with lots of yoga and watersports (mainly windsurfing and scuba). It's a low enough crime town where the street vendors barely even cover up the souvenirs they sell overnight. Honestly, I feel about as safe in Dahab as I do in Cape Cod only more relaxed (and richer).

​

Naguib Mahfouz is Egypt's most well known modern author. I love "Palace Walk" (I think he won his Nobel Prize for it) and his short stories. I also just started reading this book about Cairo, which is a super easy read and full of fun little tidbits about what a bonkers city Cairo is. Totally recommend it too. I don't recommend Cairo though. Terrible city. Fly in there with a long layover, go see the pyramids and get the fuck out of there.

Wa 'alaykum as salam wa rahmatul lahi wa barakatuh

I hope you're okay and in good health, brother /u/alienz225 - May Allah cure you and firm you upon the deen.

Bismillah...

Arabic books:

• Kitab At-Tawheed - Imam Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahab - PDF
  
  
• Al-Qawaa'id Al-Arba'a - Imam Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahab - PDF
  
  
• Talbees Iblees [Devil's Deception] - Ibn Al-Jawzi - PDF
  
  
• 'Umdat Al-Fiqh - Ibn Qudaamah - PDF
  
  English books:
  
  
• Don't be Sad - A'id al Qarni - Buy from Amazon
  
  
• A Thematic Commentary on The Qur'an - Muhammad Al-Ghazali - Buy from Amazon
  
  
• Riyadul Saliheen - Imam An-Nawawi - English Commentary.
  
  
• Lost Islamic History - Firas Al-Khateeb. Buy from Amazon
  
  
• 40 Ahadith - Imam An Nawawi - Buy from Amazon -- AMAZING!!!!!!
  
  
• Gems and Jewels - Abdul Malik Mujahid -- Buy from Amazon
  
  
• Talbees Iblees [Devil's Deception] - [Translated by Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips] - PDF
  
  ---
  
  Some of the best books, after the book of Allaah [i.e The Qur'an] in: Aqeedah, Hadeeth, Tafseer, Arabic Language, Seerah, Methodology of Da'wah etc According to Sheikh Muhammad Bazmool (May Allah preserve him):
  
  
• Tafseer for the beginner - Tafseer Al Baghawi - PDF - Arabic -- Then you can move onto reading Tafsir Ibn Kathir, even.
  
  
• In the issues of 'Aqidah required by the Muslim - Kitab At Tawheed - Imam Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahab [First Book - Look up there, inih]
  
  
• The Best explanation of Sahih Al-Bukhari - Fat'hul Bari - Imam Ibn Hajr Al-'Asqalaani
  
  
• Regarding the ahadeeth dealing with good ettiquettes (or manners) -- Riyadul Saliheen by Imam An Nawawi
  
  
• In the science of Hadith [Marifatu Anwaa' Uloom Al Hadeeth]
  
  
• Meanings of the word in the Arabic Language - [Mu'jam Maqayees Al-Lughaa - Ibn Faris] [BrentPurpose's Note: A good Arabic-English dictionary site is Almaany]
  
  
• Refutation against the Shia' : Minhaaj As-Sunnah - Ibn Taymiyyah
  
  
• The general prophetic guidance - [Zaadul-Ma'ad - Ibn Al-Qayyim]
  
  
• Acquaintance with the Sahabah - [Al-Isabaah' - Ibn Hajr Al-'Asqalaani]
  
  
• Seerah of the Prophet: As-Seerah - Ibn Hisham
  
  
• Explanation for Muwatta' Imam Malik - [At-'Tamheed - Ibn Abdul Barr]
  
  
• Methodology of Da'wah: Manahajul Al Anbiyaah Fid Da'wati Il-Allaah! - Shaikh Rabee'
  
  End Quote.
  
  Of course, the majority of these books are just beginner books. You could always try to find the works of Ibn Kathir and Ibn Al-Qayyim... considering their books are so well-known, it's safe to assume some of their books have English translations.
  
  A great Tafseer book is - Tafseer ibn Kathir.
  
  Also try to check out Al-Fawaa'id - Ibnul Qayyim.
  
  Lectures to follow:
  
  
• Tawheed Series - Sh. Ahmad Musa Jibril Link Here - English - Really beneficial!
  
  
• The Life of 'Umar ibn Al-Khattab - Anwar Al-'Awlaki Link here -ENGLISH
  
  I'm assuming the recommended sources will be of benefit, insha'Allah! I ask Allah to bless us and guide us and May Allah protect us from His wrath and punishment and May Allah admit us into Jannatul Firdous.
  

A PEACE TO END ALL PEACE by David Fromkin. In my opinion, you should start with this before anything else. Well researched, respected in the academic community, well written. It's absolutely one of the best books on the subject, and the first place I would go.

Bonus FYI: the "redrawing" period went on from 1918-1922.

Also, this book is primarily focused on the Middle East, so you won't get as much on post-war Germany, or the African continent. But it will give you tons of context for what happened during the peace conference.

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805088091/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_zs7iDb51WDZHF

Edit spelling.

As an American who grew up in Beirut I can only tell you how jealous I am.

My advice:

1)Learn Arabic. Yes it's hard, and no you won't master it. And yes, everyone speaks English, French or both...but do it.

2) Learn the history - it's very interesting and people will be impressed that you cared enough to do so.

Start with: http://www.amazon.com/Beirut-Samir-Kassir/dp/0520271262/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348796298&sr=1-1&keywords=Beirut

http://www.amazon.com/Beware-Small-States-Lebanon-Battleground/dp/1568586574/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348796349&sr=1-1&keywords=beware+of+small+states

3) Almost everybody has a home town/village. Learn the geography and accept all invitations to visit. Beirut is great, but you learn Lebanon from the small towns.

4) Yes, Americans are appreciated and given some slack. But get yourself an informal coach there and give them permission to enlighten you on the cultural norms. They are very different than the US and if you can make mistakes only once, you show you are interested and care.

5) The Lebanese food is the best in the Middle East and they are very proud of it. Learn it before you go and try everything....over and over again. Even the stuff you don't like to begin with will grow on you.

6) Find a brie (drinking jug) and learn to drink out of the spout (this means swallowing while the water is still coming out. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cP-2t4P84Og/TI4r2ji5hxI/AAAAAAAABCg/C5ZmKwrNSYI/s1600/IMG_1257.jpg

Like the answer to so many questions like this, it depends. Specifically, it depends on when we're talking about -- especially if you're interested in the status of Greeks in legal terms.

Of course, there's also the question of what you mean by "Greek". Under the Ottoman administration, Orthodox Christians (ie: Greek Orthodox) were allowed to administer their own personal status laws in accordance with their religious beliefs and administered by their own clergy (making the Patriarchate a pretty damn powerful institution). They were, for most of the time, exempt from military service (with the exception of the devşirme practice, which had long faded out by the end of the 18th century), and had to pay a special tax to the Ottoman state to secure these special provisions. Greeks (or to be specific, Phanariots) were essential to the founding of the Ottoman Translation Bureau (Tercüme Odası), which was the seedling of what would become the modern Ottoman diplomatic corps. So given the prominence of many Greeks/Greek institutions, the state took a great interest in both maintaining and manipulating the Greek community over the course of the Empire's history. The caveat being that "Greek" was mostly synonymous with "Christian", so if you were, say, a Greek-speaking Muslim, you got treated pretty much like every other Muslim in the Empire. Likewise, Turkish-speaking Christians living in Anatolia (Ionia, especially), were treated as "Greek" as much as those living in current-day Greece.

Point being, your religion mattered a lot more than your nationality in terms of how you were "treated" in the Ottoman Empire.

Some books you might find helpful:

Christine Philliou - Biography of an Empire

Mark Mazower - Salonica: City of Ghosts

K.E. Fleming - Greece: A Jewish History

The present regime is heavily based off of a few core values:

1. Anti-Israel: Lots of Muslims/Arabs hate it, and acting as the prime lightning rod for anti-Zionism would theoretically get a lot of support from Arabs who would otherwise ignore their Persian ally. Many, if not most, Persians don't actually care about Israel and view it as an Arab issue; in fact, the Shah regime recognized the Israeli state and it isn't inconceivable that a post-Islamic Republic state would either. This may be outmoded however; Turkey had decent relations with Israel under Erdogan pre-Marmara and was never seen as an Israeli patsy. Still isn't, now that they're getting renormalized. Tangent aside, it's really just to play well with the Sunni crowd. Speaking of which...
   
   
2. Shiite supremacy: I'm a little sketchy on the religious aspects, but Iran has acted in a similar capacity to Shiite groups in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and others that other "missionary" (I made that up) states like the USSR and ex-colonial states do: they intervene in the affairs of other states by saying "your government doesn't represent your pro-Labor values/your ethnicity, we do!" Even if the US dropped its alliance with Saudi Arabia and Israel tomorrow for one with Iran, it would have to contend with its other Sunni allies that resent/fear Persian manipulation/support for the downtrodden.
   
   
3. Anti-Big Satan: Let's be perfectly blunt. Even if Iran could forswear any desire to help Hamas and other such groups win back their land militarily and stop annoying Saudi Arabia with its attempts to improve the lives of the Persians' co-religionists, there's the simple matter that the US supported the Shah and hasn't exactly been nice since the Shah. There's a bit of he-said, she-said/You sanction and let the Saudis/Lebanese/whoever suppress the Palestinians/Shiites, we attack (or other way around, I'm not sure and both sides will say the other started it by this point). There have been some attempts, including an Iranian offer to talk soon after the fall of Baghdad, but it all seems to be stuck at the moment. I just hope that things improve.
   
   Too Short, Need Meat: Check out Stephen Kinzer's book. It actually speaks to your question about America's relationship with Turkey and Iran vis a vis its relationship with Saudi Arabia and Israel. It's good.

Short answer: no.

Slightly longer answer: The radicalization of Islam in the Middle East ties into the division of the region by the western powers after WWI, and further during the Cold War, when the U.S. (not only, but in particular) supported the rise to power of radical religious figures in opposition to communist/leftist parties & figures who might be sympathetic to the Soviet Union, and therefore potentially threaten U.S./U.K. access to oil in the region. This included aiding in the over-throwing of democratically elected governments in favor of autocratic but U.S./U.K.-favored leaders - most notably the U.S.-led 1953 coup d'etat in Iran, when Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown. The 1978 Iranian Revolution began as a popular uprising against the Shah who replaced him.

For more extensive reading on the subject:

Inventing Iraq by Toby Dodge (I have some major issues with Dodge's conclusions post 9/11, but the historical analysis that makes up the majority of the book is solid)

Spies in Arabia by Priya Satia, and Lawrence in Arabia are good histories of imperial ambition during the WWI period and its after-effects

Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan for the political maneuvering of the Western powers

A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin

I also recommend Edward Said, if you're looking for cultural analysis as well as history

There is an excellent book called A Peace to End all Peace.

It gives a great view of WWI with all the actors in the Middle East from the perspective of a bunch of different people like Winston Churchill, Lawrence of Arabia, and Ataturk. It is also really easy and entertaining to read (I read it at the pool).

As a matter of fact, yes! David Fromkin wrote a wonderful book on the subject, "A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East." It is engaging and very informative!

http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

Justin McCarthy wrote a book about the occupation of Van. Armenians occupied Van for a large part of the First World War. Up to 2/3 of the Muslim population there was murdered or driven out. There were twice as many Muslims as Armenians in Van, so they had to murder over half of the Muslim population to be able to rule Van. Gives you an idea what would have happened if the ‘Wilsonian Armenia’ plan had succeeded. Armenians compromised not even 16% of the population in those areas.

If you're interested in this subject, Google for Maxime Gauin. He's written some nice articles on this subject, which are available for free on Academia. Guenter Lewy's book is also a nice one (a Jewish holocaust survivor writing on this subject).

Edit: Another American source on the Armenian issue.

>“I see that reports are being freely circulated in the United States that the Turks massacred thousands of Armenians in the Caucasus. Such reports are repeated so many times it makes my blood boil. The Near East Relief have the reports from Yarrow and our own American people which show absolutely that such Armenian reports are absolutely false. The circulation of such false reports in the United States, without refutation is an outrage and is certainly doing the Armenians more harm than good. I feel that we should discourage the Armenians in this kind of work, not only because it is wrong, but because they are injuring themselves. In addition to the reports from our own American Relief workers that were in Kars and Alexandrople, and reports from men such as Yarrow, I have reports from my own Intelligence Officer and know that the Armenian reports are not true. Is there not something that you and the Near East Relief Committee can do to stop the circulation of such false reports? I was surprised to see that Dr. McCallum sent through a report along this line from Constantinople. When I called attention to the report, it was stated that it came from the Armenians but the telegram did not state this, nor did it state that the Armenian reports were not confirmed by our own reports.”

>— US Admiral Mark Lambert Bristol, 1921

Okay.. (and maybe instead of down-voting me, you could actually respond intelligently?)

European Slaves in the Ottoman Empire -- Journal of African Studies

Link is below:

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4100570?searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dottoman%2Bslaves%26acc%3Doff%26wc%3Don%26fc%3Doff&Search=yes&searchText=slaves&searchText=ottoman&uid=3739560&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102100526113

But why stop there?

Read

"Late Ottoman Concepts of Slavery (1830s-1880s)
Ehud R. Toledano
Poetics Today
Vol. 14, No. 3, Cultural Processes in Muslim and Arab Societies: Modern Period I (Autumn, 1993), pp. 477-506

and


Masters, Their Freed Slaves, and the Waqf in Egypt (Eighteenth-Twentieth Centuries)
Ron Shaham
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
Vol. 43, No. 2 (2000), pp. 162-188

and


Black Slaves and Free Blacks in Ottoman Cyprus, 1590-1640
Ronald C. Jennings
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
Vol. 30, No. 3 (1987), pp. 286-302

-----

I looked at your post history. You clearly have an agenda and this agenda does not seem to concern itself with reality.

Ottoman judicial court reports give us many examples of women slaves refusing their masters and being granted freedom. A woman in Islam, even a slave, was not a mindless fucktoy. There were many laws in place.

Read this book if you want an introduction to Ottoman Women:

http://www.amazon.com/Ottoman-Women-Asli-Sancar/dp/1597841153

-----

Plus, all white slaves were granted freedom after 7 years and black slaves were granted freedom after 9 years. No matter what. The children of a slave were not slaves. Slaves could not be killed or raped. Slaves could convert to Islam and be granted automatic freedom.

Even Sultans have been reported as being refused by a concubine. A concubine was not a sex slave that the Western imagination thought of her as. It was an important bureaucratic position, meant to educate and train future wives of generals and bureaucrats. They chose who they married and could not be forced into a marriage.

I just want to contextualize this since I think it is a Turk asking, and oftentimes Turks like to cite such chants out of context and act like it trumps the official and continual territorial violations, challenges and stunts of their government. Here is what everyday simple Greek citiziens living in Greece, who happen to be Turkish ultra-nationalists(or are young kids being indoctrinated) have been caught on video threatening and saying, and note that these are more real, specific and concrete threats than what the Greek elite soldiers are chanting:
>Τουρκική" Ένωση Ξάνθης(Turkish with Greek subtitles) @ the 3:17 min. mark:
>Abdulhalim Dede(journalist)/Αμπντουλχαλίμ Ντεντέ: In our villages we know exactly who votes for the giaours(infidels). How come we do not isolate them socially and punish them to see if they dare to vote for Sgouride(Greek politician who earlier in his tirade of hate he castigates as an enemy of Turkey) for Kondo, and for their mothers!(My translation and again this is Turkish->Greek->English)

There is also this video that exposes what the allegedly oppressed Turkish minority is taught in mosques in Greece:
>ΤΟΥΡΚΙΚA ΠΑΡΑΛΗΡΗΜΑTA ΕΘΝΙΚΙΣΤΙΚΟΥ ΜΙΣΟΥΣ ΣΤΗ ΘΡΑΚΗ, ΔΙΧΩΣ ΚΑΜΜΙΑ ΑΝΤΙΔΡΑΣΗ(Again Turkish with Greek subtitles) @ the 4:04 min mark:
>Islamo-Kemalist male child: I love you very much my Turkey! With you I will laugh, with you I will cry! ... If you need be, for you I will gladly die!
>mini hijabbed Turkish ninja child: The traitors who do not say they are Turks! ... Do not force us, this land is ours! Western Thrace is ours! ...

Those are just simple Turkish kids and a Turkish journalist posing as a human rights crusader. The Greeks making those chants belong to elite volunteer military units that will be expected to go to war or likely be involved if Turkey pulls another Imia stunt. In Turkey there is a popular myth that is actually believed that goes, "every Turk is a born soldier." You can find more about that in the work: The Myth of the Military-Nation: Militarism, Gender, and Education in Turkey. What these Greek special forces are saying is actually not very different than what average Turks say or believe. You cannot let Turks enter fora and act like those OYK chants are so uniquely condemnable by taking advantage of the naive leftism and anti-nationalism of many Greeks. Here is an excerpt from that work:
>Sabiha Gökçen, one of Ataturk's adopted daughters, participated in the Dersim Operation in 1937 and became the first woman combat pilot in the world. In her memoirs, she writes about Ataturk's response to her success in the operation upon her return to Ankara: "I am proud ol you. Gökçen! And not just me, the whole Turkish nation that has been following this incident very closely is proud of you. ... We are a military-nation. From ages seven to seventy, women and men alike, we have been created as soldiers." (Gökçen 1996. 125-126)

>Halil Inalcik. a highly-respected historian of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, wrote an article in 1964. titled "Osmanlı Devrinde Türk Ordusu" (The Turkish Military in the Ottoman Period) where he argued that "the Turkish nation has conserved its military-nation characteristic from the beginning of history till today" and that Turks are used to living as hakim (dominant) and efendi (master). İnalcık 1964. 56. This article appeared in the journal Türk Kültürü (Turkish Culture) and was re-printed in the same journal in 1972 and in 1994.

>In 1937, Hasan-Ali Yücel, a parliamentarian and educator who later served as the Minister of Education for eight years (1938-1946) collected some of his writings in a volume where he recited the following story: When a general of the Turkish Army told him, partly joking, that he would not let anyone who is not a soldier kiss his hand. Yücel felt offended: "Is there a Turk who is not a soldier? I am a soldier, too, my dear Pasha." (Yücel 1998, 39)

>As the utterances of Turkey's legendary leader, most famous historian, and the most celebrated (and remembered) Minister of Education make clear, the idea that the Turkish nation is a military-nation (ordu-millett or asker-ulus)1 is one of the foundational myths of Turkish nationalism. The popular saying. "Her Türk asker doğar" (every Turk is born a soldier) is repeated in daily conversations, school textbooks, the speeches of public officials and intellectuals, and is used as a drill slogan during military service. Its legitimacy goes without saying. In this chapter, my aim is to attempt a genealogy of the term military-nation and discuss the making of the myth that "the Turkish nation is a military-nation.""

>Altinay, Ayse Gul. Myth Of The Military Nation. (Palgrave, 2004; 1st Edition) p. 13.

I was speaking in the context of the current Iraq War. The destablization of Iraq and much of the Middle East is the direct consequence of American/British invasion and nation-building in that country. The effects of that war have influenced and spread to Syria and the eventual rise of ISIS. European involvement in Libya (though supposedly well-intended) also created a power vaccum in the region that has contributed to further war. It's also no secret that Western influence played a major role in establishing the ruling class in much of the Middle East and these rulings oligarchies were propped up by Western backing (i.e., Saudi Arabia, Gulf States, Pre-Revolution Iran, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Oman, Yemen, etc.)

>I don't see democracy, free markets or religious freedom in Syria so whatever fleeting role the West played it evidently didn't leave its most enduring values.

Those are not the only exports of Western civilization, and it includes nationalism, the modern nation-state, colonialism, communism, fascism, socialism, are also products of the West. Besides, this wasn't what I was alluding towards.

> As such, plenty of borders in Europe itself were redrawn within that time so I suppose political boundaries can't be blamed for everything as they are always changing.

The difference here is that the borders of Europe were not imposed to them by non-Europeans. Those borders were largely natively created, and this is not the case in many places in Africa and Asia. The borders were not drawn or established by the people living in those countries, but were themselves a product of colonialism and Imperialism and draw by men who had very limited to no knowledge of the peoples they were ruling over. The border between India and Pakistan was not drawn by the people of India, but by their British rulers. The borders of Syria, Jordan, and Iraq were drawn through negotiations between the French and British with subjugation of Arab independence movements (see Source below). The borders of Israel/Palestine were drawn by the British, the borders of West Africa were drawn by the French, etc.

>I suppose the region could have been left as it was in the Ottoman Empire. Then everything could be blamed on the Turks... which might just be happening again anyway. Just goes to prove that if you wait long enough, everyone gets a chance to be the villain.

Again, you're thinking this from the colonial mindset, as if it's for anyone to decide the fate of borders aside from the people themselves and many of them would have decided for themselves if they wanted to continue living under Turkish suzerainty or create nation-states themselves. The fact of the matter is that they were never given that chance.

>Personally, I see the obstinate adherence to tribal affiliations and Islamic fundamentalism that demolishes any attempt at fair democratic representation to the true 'situation' in Syria. And those problems came long before anything to do with the West.

You're not wrong. I never said that the entire blame falls on the West, and quite a bit falls under the many factors that already existed in the region that also played a major role.

However, metaphorically speaking, when creating a meal, you need different recipes for everything to come together. The same way it would be foolish to absolve Western involvement in the current confict and state of the Middle East. In fact, even downplaying that role is foolish since they are a major* ingredient in what is happening in the world today. You can't say that the most powerful nations in the entire planet (i.e., US, Russia, UK, and France) during the past 300-400 years had only a minimal role to play in the way our world has been shaped.

Source (and recommended reading): A Peace to End all Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East

I am right now in Jerusalem, and reading a great book about the history of this city:http://www.amazon.ca/Jerusalem-Biography-Simon-Sebag-Montefiore/dp/0307280500

Coming from Vancouver I think that we in Canada are blessed with land and a lack of historical conflict (brushing aside issues with the First Nations as has so often been done).

Jerusalem has been the centre of the spiritual world for so long and the number of times it has been sieged, conquered, sacked is just crazy. The amount of bloodshed, massacres, forced conversions, crucifixions etc ads a human element to the suffering that happened here. Even then, it is the site of so much joy stemming from the religious crowds that feel a connection here (busloads of pilgrims erywhere).

The only times that peace reigned here was during periods where a hegemonic power ruled and allowed freedom of religion (though usually not free in the modern sense, special taxes for jews or other restrictions). Otherwise Jerusalem and the surrounding provinces were a prize for kings from Greece, Rome, Egypt, Arabia, Babylon, Persia, Mongolia, Turkey.

I guess what I am saying is that I am not very optimistic. I have spent some time speaking with ultra-religious jews here in an effort to overcome my prejudices, and on a personal level many are full of warmth and insight on a variety of interesting subject matter. On an ideological level they are firmly rooted in the past when Herod's temple stood where the Dome of the Rock is now. How will this ever change?

> to really understand what's going on today in the middle east, you pretty much have to go back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WW1, and then work your way forward from there

Absolutely. Actually one of my 2016 objectives was to gain a better understanding in Middle Eastern history which was something I really lacked. I am in no way an expert now but have a better idea on how everything unfolded post Ottoman Empire fall and I am genuinely disturbed at seeing how absolutely no one ever mentions any bit of relevant history in the media. The lack of any attempt at explanation is really bothering me :/

If you're interested, this book taught me a lot: A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. Lots of very interesting stories about how the Middle East was built post-Ottoman empire!

I really wouldn't know one book or 'work' (whether as a series of papers or a stand-alone product) that's providing a decent summary of all the Arab militaries at diverse wars they fought since 1918. Depending on the period, country/military in question, there are few that are outstanding, and a mass that's actually useless (at best: intentionally misguiding).

One belonging to the first group would be Asher's Egyptian Strategy for the Yom Kippur War.

Sure, it's next to unknown in the wider public. But, what's making it as interesting is not only that it's largely based on documentation captured when the IDF overrun the HQ of the Egyptian Third Field Army in October 1973, plus plenty of translations from diverse Arab military publications. Foremost, it's really a good, serious military study, and no nice-weather-report.

There are few other such works in Israel (by Prof Mustafa Khabba, just for example), but 'don't worry': most are entirely unlikely to ever be translated into English.

Two other recommended reads would be Provence's The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism and The Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East

The rest really depends on what exactly are you after.

If you're quite interested, I'd recommend Invisible Armies by Max Boot. It'll take some time to get through but it covers every major insurgency in recorded history and he's a pretty good writer so the read goes faster than expected.

As far as I know, the book is still representative of the current state of scholarship concerning the period. It deals exclusively with the period between 1914 and 1922, which is, by this time, relatively declassified in terms of documentation, so I wouldn't expect another book to eclipse it any time soon, unless someone happens to write a better synthesis of the available material.

It looks like the publisher recently released a 20th anniversary edition with an afterword from the author. That wasn't the edition I read, but I would imagine Fromkin's afterword serves as an index of more recent developments in the study of that period.

As for follow-up reading, my plan is to go regional, with a string of books about the development of the nationalisms that got their start in that period. So, on the one hand, I want to start digging backwards into the Ottoman Empire prior to the Young Turk movement (which more or less starts APTEAP), and on the other, I'd like to examine the modern histories of Transjordan, early Jewish nationalism, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. Before I get to all of that, though, I've got A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani, which ought to keep me occupied for a while, once I start it.

Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds by Kinzer is also a great look into Turkey's past and current political development.

Also, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future by Vali Nasr is a fantastic insight into the 1979 Iranian Revolution and everything stemming from that.The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran by Charles Kurzman is another great look into the revolution, along with others throughout the Middle East and North Africa region.

A Peace to end all Peace

It has been really good, I am glad I had a decent knowledge of the subject before starting it.

I recommend "Peace to end all Peace" By David Fromkin http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

I don't see how its relevant to the topic at hand, but here you go some good books on the topic, let me know if want any other suggestions.

A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide

Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide

A Peace to End all Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East

Fall of the Ottomans:The Great War in the Middle East

Instead of stepping on a possible landmine, I'd recommend asking her about it to learn as much as you can from her. The national narrative differs quite a bit from most books.

So you've got the standard Fromkin:
A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East

http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation-ebook/dp/B003X27L7C/

Karen House as an overview:

http://www.amazon.com/On-Saudi-Arabia-People-Religion-ebook/dp/B007MDK5GM/

Then you've got the . . . interesting take on it from Alexei Vassiliev.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Saudi-Arabia-Alexei-Vassiliev-ebook/dp/B00F21X5Y0/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

There's more stuff but that should give a fairly comprehensive overview for what you're looking on.

"A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East" by David Fromkin is the book you are looking for.

https://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

Well there's even more to the situation than this article mentions. The US was actually helping to arm both Iraq and Iran with the goal of helping to inflict casualties on both sides. A weak Iran and Iraq tipped the power scales in the middle east toward Israel and Saudi Arabia, which was and is the US's desired balance in the middle east powers.

To learn more about it, read Reset by Stephen Kinzer. It's a great book, as are Kinzer's other books.

From page 498 of A Peace to End All Peace:
>The public believed Thomas's account; so that when Lawrence became an adviser to Winston Churchill, his appointment over-shadowed all others. His reputation grew. He passed off his fantasies as history, and in the years to come, Lawrence was to claim far more credit for his share in Churchill's achievements as Colonial Secretary than was his due.
.....A few years later Thomas wrote a book called With Lawrence in Arabia, based on the show,repeating the story he had told to his mass audiences of millions around the world. It was an immensely readable, high-spirited write-up of Lawrence's service career—much of it untrue—that made its points through hyper-bole.

Here's a screenshot of the page for more context.

Biographies of the Prophet (peace be upon him)

Martin Ling's "Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources"
| Amazon
| PDF
| Audiobook

Sheikh Safi-ur-Rahman al-Mubarkpuri "The Sealed Nectar"
| Amazon
| PDF (Older edition)


Autobiographies

Muhammad Asad "The Road to Mecca"
| Amazon
| PDF

Jeffrey Lang "Even Angels Ask: A Journey to Islam in America"
| Amazon

| PDF

Alex Haley and Malcolm X "The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley"
Amazon
| PDF

Other recommendations

Firas Alkhateeb "Lost Islamic History"

Hamza Tzortzis "The Divine Reality: God, Islam & The Mirage Of Atheism"

Given your background, some speakers you may find beneficial:

Sheikh Hussain Yee - From Buddhism to Islam

Abdur-Raheem Green - How I Came to Islam

Joshua Evans - How the Bible Led Me to Islam: The Story of a Former Christian Youth Minister

Books recommended by Hamza Yusuf in the video:

• A Peace to End All Peace
  
  
• Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam

I haven't read the newest edition, but I'd recommend Mehran Kamrava's The Modern Middle East.

Dan Smith's The State of the Middle East: An Atlas of Conflict and Resolution does a great job presenting things visually.

WWI smashed both Christendom (rule by Christian monarchs) across Europe, and the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. In its place were installed democracy (rule by puppets whose political campaigns were paid by the shadow elite) and dictatorship (rule by puppets installed by the military controlled by the shadow elite). Prior to WWI, the Christian and Muslim empires fought for territory but did not fight amongst themselves within their own territory. After WWI, the Middle East was divided and conquered, and European society was no longer Christian. The shadow elite was now able to enjoy power, wealth, and sex.

See http://www.amazon.com/1917-Red-Banners-White-Mantle/dp/0931888050 and http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

It has to do with oil and the imperialism, all the contemporary wars in the area was because of oil and colonization. Centuries ago everywhere was war. :) Because of the oil peace has never reached the middle East. Just like Africa and it's minerals.
Iran and the Ottomanian empire made several peace treaties and border definition in 15th and 16th century. They never attacked each other after that.
Edit: I really suggest you to read the book "a peace to end all peace: the fall of the Ottomanian empire and the creation of the modern Middle East", before making such comment. It is from a Westerner's point of view not complete but very informative.
https://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

I was also going to make a note but when I looked it up on amazon, it's apparently only $2.91 with free shipping (prime), so I just ordered it.

You serious? Because the British literally selected the tribal leader Ibn Saud and gave him control of what we now call Saudi Arabia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Saud#Rise_to_power

The Brits mistakenly believed that the King of Mecca was like a Muslim pope and everyone would fall in line behind him. So they created the boundary lines for Iraq and Jordan and placed his sons on the thrones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussein_bin_Ali,_Sharif_of_Mecca#Following_World_War_I

The founding of Israel was guaranteed by ex prime minister Balfour and later the Sykes-Picot agreement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement


Suggested reading:

http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453911664&sr=1-1&keywords=a+peace+to+end+all+peace

http://www.amazon.com/Kingmakers-Invention-Modern-Middle-East/dp/0393337707

Pretty sure the pic is from the Lost Islamic History book.

This is a great book on it

If you are interested in further reading about their impact as well as the making of the modern Middle East following WWI, I highly suggest this book. http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

Cannot agree more.

Here is a book I thought was brilliant book.

https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Armies-History-Guerrilla-Warfare/dp/0871406888

Martin Lings is great! Also, if you're looking for a book that doesn't delve too much into the history of Islam's theological development but discusses Islamic history throughout the ages and Islam's impact on the world, Lost Islamic History by Firas Alkhateeb is gold!

I'm not sure that I would call it "the best", but I heartily recommend Lords Of The Golden Horn by Noel Barber. The history of the Ottoman Empire had plenty of the same kookiness that makes Roman history so intriguing.

Beirut - Samir Kassir
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beirut-Samir-Kassir/dp/0520271262
I also suggest researching the author :)

You're right to be suspicious and wary. I just got done reading Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence, which basically goes over the PKK and Abdullah Ocalan's history and evolution.

Long story short: Ocalan is an egotistical opportunist who created a culture of fear and violence against dissenters, a cult of personality around himself, routinely ordered suspected political rivals to be killed, attacked other Kurdish groups, and then when he was captured by the Turkish state in 1999, completely made an about-face singing the praises of Turkey, telling PKK militants to lay down their arms, etc. in the hope that he wouldn't be killed.

Despite this, the fact that more and more people flocked to the PKK is a testament to the Kurdish people's passion of independence and autonomy; really, the PKK's popularity was in spite of Ocalan and his psycho ways.

Now, it does seem like there has been momentous shifts in their ideology and practice; they are clearly open to rival and autonomous groups now (like the PYD of northern Syria), and encourage democratic confederalism. So maybe Ocalan has actually changed in prison, I dunno. But if one man can completely revamp an organization like that, then it is best to be wary and observant.

-edit- I should clarify that I'm optimistic about the PKK and affiliated organizations like the PYD. Optimistic, but cautious.

> Until the US overthrew Saddam and the Arab Spring, the region was generally stable. A hell of a lot more stable than ti is now

So in turn the US created a power vacuum... Instability in the Middle East has been the goal for over a century. Read something, like http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091


And what about the CIA's major role in overthrowing democratically elected politicians?

A Peace to End All Peace isn't directly about WWI, but it does a great job of explaining how the war and its aftermath led to the modern Middle East.

Mehran Kamrava's The Modern Middle East, Third Edition: A Political History since the First World War is a good place to start. It covers topics relating to the Middle East overall, but there are (substantial) parts dedicated to conflicts surrounding Israel.

Read it here. The author mentions that such voyages are mentioned in the geography text of al-Masudi from the 900s.

Now please send Hawaiian Punch.

There are a lot of leftist groups in South America which have had some real longevity, if not success, such as The Shining Path and FARC. There's the Taliban, who really started out as a protection racket for the Pakistani ISI and bloomed into a Islamist revolutionary army, and then a state, and then an insurgency. The Bush War between the Rhodesians, especially the Selous Scouts, and groups like the ZANU is pretty fascinating. Probably the most successful was Giuseppe Garibaldi who started as an insurgent fighter in both South America and Europe before eventually unifying the Italian state.

I'd highly recommend Invisible Armies by Max Boot. I think it would be right up your alley.

EDIT: After rereading your post I think you may be looking more toward "unconventional warfare" teams than "Guerrilla groups". I'd check out the CIA and Special Forces operations with the Montagnards in Southeast Asia, who ran five or ten man teams with local fighters against communist forces in Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos. The Brandenburgers of the German Abwehr were also really fascinating. They ran teams of commandos who were often bi-national or born overseas to run operations in their respective ethnic areas behind enemy lines in World War Two. One of their more famous ops had Russian speaking commandos dressing up as NKVD troops in Crimea and then directing Soviet troop formations on the way to the front in the wrong direction. After the war quite a few of them disappeared, with some ending up in the French Foreign Legion, if legends are to be believed.

They were referred to as Janissaries, but they were essentially just state sponsored pirates. The Barbary Coast was for a time the western periphery of the Ottoman Empire, but the relationships between the beys/deys of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli (not so much Morocco) was more of a formality than anything. The Barbary States paid their taxes and weakened the economies of other European nations while in return they were provided with all the benefits associated with being under the protection of the Ottoman Empire. Casale talks about all of this in his book The Ottoman Age of Exploration.

A Peace to End all Peace by historian David Fromkin covers this in great detail. It's a great read if you want to be sad and angry and confused.

You literally just described how the borders of the middle east were drawn after ww1. And I mean literally literally. How'd that work out?

A Peace to End All Peace

It's not a general history of WWI, as it deals with the war in the Ottoman theater. To my knowledge, it's the definitive history of WWI and its aftermath in the Mid-East for a general audience.

Lots of great answers everyone. I see that I have a lot of reading to do and that is a good thing. Just for anyone also interested I compiled all of the named books into a list and sourced them, for your reading pleasure.



The Accidental Guerrilla by David Kilcullen

Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen

Out of the Mountains by David Kilcullen

Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam by John Nagl

Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods by John Poole

Modern War: Counter-Insurgency as Malpractice by Edward Luttwak

A Savage War of Peace by Alistar Horne

The Bear Went Over the Mountain by Lester Grau

Invisible Armies by Max Boot

Vid Putivla do Karpat by Sydir Artemovych Kovpac

Fire in the Lake by Frances FitzGerald

Inside Rebellion by Jeremy M. Weinstein

Dude, I've read...lots and lots of books on the subjects. Saying its "the fault" of the West is highly, highly simplifying a rather complex situation. lol "read wiki".

Dude, read this. Don't ever think that you got informed on something from a wiki article. The West had a role, but it's not like, oh, I dunno, the people of the Arabian Peninsula were just on the sidelines, passively observing.

The same goes for Afghanistan.

Yeah, the immediate negative reaction to "Western science" has more to do with many Muslims around the world having a bad taste in their mouths regarding the West in general (can't blame them, Europe did invade and carve up their nations).

Here's a few good books to look into:

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Challenge-History-Lectures-Series/dp/0300159110/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1404626540&sr=8-3&keywords=islam+science

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-History-Enduring-Scientists-Thinkers/dp/1426202806/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404626582&sr=8-1&keywords=lost+history

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Islamic-History-Firas-Alkhateeb/dp/1849043973/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390934800&sr=8-1&keywords=lost+islamic+history

There's a book called: A Peace to end all Peace
http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

It was a great book and helped me have a decent understanding of how the West screwed over rebelling Muslims during WWI which eventually led to the conflict we see today. It doesn't directly reference Hamas but it talks about why the Middle East is screwed up and tensions between the Jews and Arabs following WWI.

> Yes, a theocratic government in today's world is a brilliant idea....especially when it's attempting to be founded by extremists.

Well you see, the Muslim world was all ready to hop on the secularism bandwagon. The Ottoman Empire dissolved the Caliphate, the Islamic equivalent of the Papacy, in a process of self-secularization to become modern Turkey. Europe never did that. You can see pictures of Iran, Pakistan, and Arab countries from the early 20th century. They're routinely posted on reddit and upvoted to the front page. They were very "modernized". Communism/Socialism was very popular too.

The key sticking point was Israel.

From old posts of mine on the subject:

> After World War 1, the elected Arab representatives of the former Ottoman Empire got together and told a fact-finding commission sent by the US president that they wanted a representative democracy with complete independence, or barring that, under an American mandate (because America was seen as a non-imperial power with democratic ideals), with Palestine included (and there were Jewish representatives agreeing with this). That what they did not want was being handed over to the French and British (which is what happened). This report was suppressed in the US until after Congress voted to support the creation of Israel, and then the New York Times published it and accused the government of misleading Americans about the Arabs and Turks. This is just one example of a huge blunder born out of immoral action and there are too many to count.
>
> The Muslim world was ready to drink the secularism kool-aid and follow in Turkey's lead. Western countries displayed a flagrant disregard for their concerns. Apparently hell hath no fury like a Muslim world scorned in this case.

Also,

> After WW1, the Syrians wanted an independent democracy or to be under an American mandate because they loved America. Instead they were given to France (because the report was suppressed in the US until a pro-Israel declaration could be passed by the US Congress because the Syrians also expressed opposition to the idea of creating a Jewish state in Palestine). By the 1960s/1970s the Muslim world began thinking secularism/democracy was a bald-faced lie never put into practice since whenever it came to Muslim nations, the West supported dictators, religious fanatics, and overt or covert imperialism, and worst of all, a pre-emptive war by a Jewish state (created by lying to the Arabs) with non-secular laws ("preserving the Jewish character" for instance) to annex Jerusalem... all of which violated what they were saying publicly. That's when anti-secularism and anti-Western sentiment took hold in the world's Muslim population and more and more people began to think this was just the same old Crusades in new disguise. Islamist terrorism really took off after that (in the '70s).
>
> No one can argue the Muslim world didn't give secularism a serious try. What Turkey did is equivalent to Italy destroying the Vatican and the Papacy because it's a "foreign institution" which threatens Italy's secular values. Then there was the rising tide of Western-approved nationalism (on the back of Western-approved left-wing socialism) throughout the Muslim world. None of these worked either.

And,

> Initially, America was received very well by the rest of the world. They were seen as anti-European rebels. I think the first (or second) country to recognize the US was a Muslim one (one of the North African ones I think). After World War 1, Syria wanted to either be granted independence as a democracy or be governed by an American mandate (since they saw that as the same thing, perhaps even better that they could learn from a real democracy... everyone was ready to drink the American kool-aid or already drunk on it). They might've accepted British but they expressed their dislike of them. They hated the French. They were absolutely against the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Predictably, the Allies gave Syria to the French and the Americans suppressed the release of this report until after Congress passed a bill to support the creation of Israel. Basically post-WW1 amid all the broken promises, this "pro-America" sentiment quickly was displaced by "just more Europeans under a different name" sentiment. Then after WW2 and the creation of Israel a lot more animosity was created between the cultures and modern communication technology was like an accelerant put on a flame. And now everyone sees America as having been passed the torch from the European colonial empires who were passed the torch from the Crusaders. So now anytime America does anything, it's a punctuation on more than one thousand years of conflict rather than seen as an isolated incident.

So, TL;DR - The West breaking its promises to the Arabs and repeatedly unconditionally supporting a Jewish state of Israel made most of the Muslim world realize secularism was a red herring. A ruse. A lie made up by the West for whatever reason. When it came down to it, the West acted as a monolithic bloc (like it did during the Crusades) when dealing with the rest of the world and suspended all that nice stuff about secularism when it came time to create a Jewish country on Arab land.

When the West supported Israel's pre-emptive war to annex Jerusalem in the late '60s. That was the final straw. That broke any connection the Muslim world (its masses) had to Western ideals and philosophy.

That's when Islamism (previously thrust to the fringes since the time of Sayid Qutb, the 19th/20th century grand-daddy of modern Islamism) started to pick up support (and Afghanistan against the USSR in the '80s was ground zero for these movements to pick up some real training... the first wave of terrorists in the '70s and '80s that were hijacking planes and all that stuff died out and after the USSR was defeated in Afghanistan, those groups then took over the terrorism racket).

Read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

You can find the original New York Times article from the early 20th century on the Syria report on their website! It's pretty cool. Google for it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%E2%80%93Crane_Commission

Also, the West kind of evolved into secularism over time (one step along the way was the Protestant reformation and other developments within "Christendom", and the events surrounding the creation of the United States). The rest of the world got secularism/democracy, not on their own over time, but from the West. If they don't trust the West, they won't trust its ideas. Particularly when they fail to work.

EDIT: Also the strong Marxist/Leftist/Socialist/Communist presence in the Muslim world made it easier for them to sour very easily on Western political philosophy. They got ammunition from them too.

>We didn't kill the Armenians because they were Armenians or because we wanted to exterminate their whole race like Hitler, but because it was war and they were our enemies.

People such as Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, who was an early member of the Nazi Party, and Hans von Seeckt spent time in Ottoman Turkey and drew inspiration from what was happening. Even Rudolf Höss, who would later be the commandant of Auschwitz, was there. He joined the German forces in Turkey.

Yes, there was an armed Armenian insurgency, but the Turks responded to that but going to every single Armenian village and slaughtering every single Armenian they could get their hands on, without respect to age or gender. The vast majority of which had absolutely nothing to do with that insurrection. Turkish soldiers took babies and bashed their brains out on rocks. They enticed the help of the Kurds in carrying away the women to be raped. Railways and cattle cars were used to transport Armenian people from one end of the empire to the other, which shares parallels with the trains used to transport Jews to death and labour camps.

Enver Pasha told Henry Morgenthau that the Armenians were being sent to "new quarters", just as the Jews were latter to be "resettled".

Morgenthau himself stated: "Persecutions of Armenians assuming unprecedented proportions. Reports from widely scattered districts indicate systematic attempt to uproot peaceful Armenian populations and through arbitrary arrests, terrible tortures, whole-sale expulsions and deportations from one end of the Empire to the other accompanied by frequent instances of rape, pillage, and murder, turning into massacre, to bring destruction on them. These measures are not in response to popular or fanatical demand but are purely arbitrary and directed from Constantinople in the name of military necessity, often in districts where no military operations are likely to take place."

Furthermore, Taalat Pasha said this in an official document to his prefect: "You have already been advised that the Government, by order of the Djemiet, has decided to destroy completely all the indicated persons [Armenians] living in Turkey.

Their existence must come to an end, however tragic the means may be; and no regard must be paid to either age or sex, or to conscientious scruples."

How on earth can you describe this as anything other than genocide?

EDIT: In case you think that Morgenthau's account is not credible since he was representing a country at war with the Ottoman Empire, I point you towards von Wagenheim, a German ambassador who lead a diplomatic mission to the Ottoman Empire, who recounted that Talat had admitted that the deportations were not "being carried out because of 'military considerations alone'". One month later, he came to the conclusion that there "no longer was doubt that the Porte was trying to exterminate the Armenian race in the Turkish Empire"

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East

Thanks to DrPoop_PhD