Al-Muthanna Club

The Al-Muthanna Club (Arabic: نادي المثنى) was an influential pan-Arab fascist society established in Baghdad ca. 1935 to 1937 which remained active until May 1941, when the coup d'état 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]

Al-Muthanna Club
Nadi al-Muthanna
ChairmanSaib Shawkat
Founded1935 (1935)
Dissolved1941 (1941)
Succeeded byIraqi Independence Party
(not legal successor)
Youth wingAl-Futuwwa
IdeologyPan-Arabism
Fascism
Political positionFar-right
International affiliationNone
Colours  Black

Sami Shawkat

In 1938, as fascism in Iraq grew, Saib 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 the 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 (with co-founder: Taha al-Hashimi[7]), and was 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.[8]

Yunis al-Sabawi

Yunis al-Sabawi (يونس السبعاوي) (who translated Hitler's book Mein Kampf into Arabic in the early 1930s) was active in the al-Muthanna club[9] and in the leadership of the al-Futuwwa.[10] He was a deputy in the Iraqi government,[11] minister of economics.[12] Al-Sabawi had become anti-Semitic; on 1 and 2 June 1941, members of al-Muthanna and its youth organization led a mob that attacked Baghdad's Jewish community in a pogrom later named the Farhud.[13] Two days before Farhud, Al-Sabawi, a government minister who proclaimed himself the governor of Baghdad, had summoned Rabbi Sasson Khaduri, the community leader, and recommended to him that Jews stay in their homes for the next three days as a protective measure. He had planned for a larger massacre, planning to broadcast a call for the Baghdad public to massacre Jews. However, the broadcast was never made since al-Sabawi was forced to flee the country.[14]

After the British overthrew the coup government, Sabawi was court-martialed for the mutiny, sentenced to death, and hanged on 5 May 1942.[15][16][17]

See also

References
  1. Party, Government and Freedom in the Muslim World: Three Articles Reprinted from the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2d Ed., V. 3. E. J. Brill. 1968. p. 9. ISBN 9789004017061. Retrieved 2014-12-14.
  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. Davis, E. (2005). Memories of State: Politics, History, and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq. University of California Press. p. 74. ISBN 9780520235465.
  5. Saddam Hussein and the crisis in the Gulf p. 73, Judith Miller, Laurie Mylroie, Biography & Autobiography, Times Books, 1990
  6. "'You boys you are the seeds from which our great President Saddam will rise again' - Telegraph". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-12-14.
  7. N.Y.), Nation Associates (New York (1948). The British Record on Partition as Revealed by British Military Intelligence and Other Official Sources. Author. p. 74.
  8. Iran, Iraq, and the Arab Gulf States, Joseph A. Kechichian, Gustave E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies, lgrave Macmillan, 2001, p. 84
  9. Intellectual life in the Arab East, 1890–1939, Center for Arab and Middle East Studies, American University of Beirut, 1981, p. 172
  10. "The Farhud". ushmm.org. Retrieved 2014-12-14.
  11. Documents on German foreign policy, 1918–1945: from the archives of the German Foreign Ministry, H.M. Stationery Off., 1966, p. 566
  12. Britain's informal empire in the Middle East: a case study of Iraq, 1929–1941, Daniel Silverfarb, Oxford University Press US, 1986, p. 135
  13. Davis, E. (2005). Memories of State: Politics, History, and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq. University of California Press. p. 70. ISBN 9780520235465. Retrieved 2014-12-14.
  14. Gilbert, Martin (2011-09-20). In Ishmael's House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands. McClelland & Stewart. p. 189. ISBN 978-0-7710-3569-2.
  15. mbih. "The Farhud (Farhoud). MIDRASH ben ish hai lecture". midrash.org. Retrieved 2014-12-14.
  16. "The Scribe - Issue 11 (May-Jun 1973)" (PDF). Retrieved 2014-12-14.
  17. "The Iraq coup of Raschid Ali in 1941, the Mufti Husseini and the Farhud (Farhoud)". mideastweb.org. Retrieved 2014-12-14.
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