The 20th century

[edit] The 20th century
The modern age brought radical technological and organizational changes to Europe and Islamic countries found themselves less modern when compared to many western nations. Europe's state-based government and rampant colonization allowed the West to dominate the globe economically and forced Islamic countries to question change.

[edit] Demise of the Ottoman Empire
Main article: Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire
See also: Ottoman Caliphate and Turkish War of Independence
By the end of the 19th century, the Ottoman empire had declined due to internal conflict. Their decision to back Germany in World War I meant they shared the Central Powers' defeat in that war, which led directly to the overthrow of the Ottomans by Turkish nationalists led by the victorious general of the Battle of Gallipoli; Mustapha Kemal, who became known to his people as Atatürk, "Father of the Turks." It was fundamentally Atatürk who is to credit for successfully renegotiating the treaty of Sèvres (1920) which ended their involvement in the war and establishing the modern Republic of Turkey, which was officially recognized by the Allies in the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). Atatürk went on to implement an ambitious program of modernization that emphasized economic development and secularization. He effectively transformed Turkish culture to reflect European style laws and clothing, adopted Hindu-Arabic numerals, the Roman alphabet, separated the religious establishment from the state, and emancipated woman- even giving them the right to vote roughly contemporary with the same transformation in western law for the first time.[33] Following World War I, the vast majority of former Ottoman territory located outside of Asia Minor were parceled out as European protectorates. Despite Allied promises to subject peoples of the former Ottoman Empire during the war for future independence in exchange for their assistance fighting the central Turkish powers in Asia Minor; to their dismay, old-fashioned European imperialism was put in to practice through this system of "protectorates" which was a mere smoke-screen for their continued subjugation by the new ideas in the region: the British and the French. Such struggles for independence from their Turkish overlords and cooperation of partisan forces with the British were romanticized in the stories of British secret intelligence agent T.E. Lawrence- later known as "Lawrence of Arabia."[34] Ottoman successor states include today's Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Lebanon, Montenegro, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, other Balkan states, North Africa and the north shore of the Black sea.[35]

Many Muslim countries sought to adopt European political organization and nationalism began to emerge in the Muslim world. Countries like Egypt, Syria, and Turkey organized their governments with definable policies and sought to develop national pride amongst their citizens. Other places, like Iraq, were not as successful due to a lack of unity and an inability to resolve age-old prejudices between Muslim sects and against non-Muslims.

Some Muslim countries, such as Turkey and Egypt, sought to separate Islam from the secular government. In other cases, such as Saudi Arabia, the new government brought out new religious expression in the re-emergence of the puritanical form of Sunni Islam known to its detractors as Wahabism which found its way into the Saudi royal family.