Dealing with the Refugees in the Middle East

"There is no humanity in diplomacy," said a commentator on television recently when discussing the Syrian crisis. Indeed, many of the immediate concerns of "humanity" are left to humanitarian organizations to manage, while other critical dimensions - like providing dignity, legitimacy, and lasting answers - are lost in the turmoil of interest-driven politics.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, wrote an article in the Cairo Review detailing the refugee crisis in the Middle East today. He explains how the creation of a new refugee problem in Syria, combined with the older question of the Palestinian refugees and other lingering problems, have now overcharged the region. The challenge is now vast, leaving host countries with an overwhelming burden:

• Syrian Refugees: 1.3 million refugees in other countries; 4,000,000 internally displaced
• Iraqi Refugees: 94,000 refugees still in Syria and Jordan; 1,000,000 internally displaced
• Yemen: 230,000 refugees in Yemen, most of them Somali; 400,000 internally displaced
• Libya: 500,000 refugees of 800,000 from 120 nationalities who had originally crossed Libya's borders in early 2011; 60,000 internally displaced
• Palestinian Refugees: 5,000,000 (eligible for UNRWA services) dispersed throughout the Middle East and beyond.

(Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan) 

Without counting Palestinians, this amounts to 2,124,000 refugees and 5,460,000 internally displaced in the Middle East. The grand total who have been cast out of house and home is over 12,000,000. The scale can be likened to the situation of Europe at the end of the Second World War, but in the Middle East, this is happening during a rolling and ongoing series of crises. 

In some smaller countries, such as Lebanon and Jordan, the recent influx of Syrian refugees amounts to 10% of the local population. Host countries are doing their best but they cannot manage such numbers alone. Furthermore, their citizens feel threatened by unwanted strangers whose presence, they believe, is the cause of an increase in prices and crime. As Guterres points out, the Middle East's tradition of generosity and hospitality is now under heavy pressure. 

What can be done?

International humanitarian organizations such as UNHCR and UNRWA are doing all they can to deliver aid and services (and everyone can donate on their websites). They provide as much material aid as possible; however, the refugees' loss of status, legitimacy and security, equally important needs, are barely attended to. 

Can the region itself do more to address these problems? The automatic answer is that regional actors today are barely managing their own affairs and, although the Arab tradition of social hospitality is strong, it does not translate well into the political sphere. Interestingly, however, some Gulf states, especially the UAE, have become more active in providing funds or serving as logistical hubs. 

As we had mentioned in a previous post, a key problem in the region today is a lack of empathy between groups. There is a desperate need for common purpose and a greater sense of identity than family or tribe. Also, "solutions" in the region all too often take the form of local violent reactions, or, ironically, international intervention. But, there is a large spectrum of possible action in between, especially at the regional level.

Practically speaking, it may be more effective to meet the refugees and host countries' needs through a regional framework. Such an approach would provide greater autonomy and control over the problem, improve coordination between affected countries and the capacity to act locally, and create more organic and cultural links to the refugees, including improving their status in host countries.

Such a potential "Middle East Refugee Organization" can continue to work in close coordination with and through the support of international actors. Critically, such regional responsibility would begin to move the Middle East away from a deep reliance on others to solve problems, and also create a way to begin to chip away at the tribal reflexes that plague the region. Although distrust is rampant in the Middle East, and a core obstacle to cooperation, host countries, like the Lebanese, would do well to remember their own recent experience as refugees. Others may also yet suffer such a fate in the future, i.e. this is a common human problem.

There is no doubt that, as Guterres stresses, the ultimate resolution to this problem is through new political arrangements. However, until this happens, if regional actors and host countries attend to the refugees material and emotional needs, they are far less likely to become the threat that many in the region fear.

As much as this seems contrary to the tough political habits of the Middle East, dealing with the refugee issue regionally may spur a badly needed virtuous cycle in the region, and, in the process, infuse some badly needed humanity into diplomacy. It may also may add backbone to the resolution of other problems, such as regional economic, water and food security issues. 

At the end of the day, these millions of individuals that we call refugees are the victims of history and the dysfunctional politics of the region. Their lot does not mean that their basic needs have disappeared, including the need for dignity despite the loss of home and security. A greater attendance to these common human needs could at least mitigate their tragic experience. 

For a look at the state of Syrian refugees, see this powerful photo essay.

Adelard of Bath

“In my judgment certainly, nothing at all dies in this sensible world... for if any part of it is released from one conjunction, it does not perish but passes over to another association.”

- Adelard of Bath, On the Use of the Astrolabe

While he was a young man studying at the famed French cathedral school of Tours, Adelard of Bath, an 12th century Englishman of noble lineage, underwent a life changing experience. Following a lesson about star constellations given by a wise man at the academy, Adelard, smitten by what had become a huge love of learning, went for a walk in the forest on the edge of town to process his knowledge. 

While in nature’s bosom, Adelard experienced a profound mystical vision. He recounts being approached by two women: one holding out wealth and fame, and the other offering knowledge. He says that despite a moment of material temptation, he accepted the latter. The episode would not only consolidate the scholar’s personal trajectory, but also that of the civilization to which he belonged.

Adelard of Bath went on to become an early conduit and pioneer of Arab wisdom and learning, bringing the wonders of ancient science to a medieval West that was starved of knowledge. Although talented, privileged and driven by enough curiosity to make the kind of difficult cross-continental journey that few people in his day would think of doing on their own, the main impetus for Adelard’s travels to the Middle East was an inner need that stirred within him and its connection to the wider destiny of humanity.

Europe in the 12th century was in a state of disarray. Poverty, violence, material backwardness and social instability were rife. The classical knowledge of ancient Greece had been lost to the West because few people could read Greek, as the ancient Romans once did. The handful of schools which existed offered low-level learning compared to what had for centuries been on offer in Arab and Islamic lands. The earliest trickling of that knowledge was just starting to reach Europe, but much of it was still too difficult to decipher. 

Adelard, who had a propensity for learning, was cognizant of the sad state of Western knowledge; so much so that he came to disdain European learning, becoming transfixed upon the wisdom available in other lands. A journey to southern Italy and Sicily (areas adjacent to the Middle East) confirmed for him that he was intellectually confined in northern Europe. He decided once and for all to break free and fling himself into the high cultural firmament – and political turmoil - of the Middle East.

Adelard left for the Arab lands in 1109, in the early years of the Crusades. Apart from a few key details which he later provides, we know little about his time in the Middle East. Adelard spent roughly seven years abroad, basing himself in Antioch on the Mediterranean coast of Syria, then ruled by the city state of Pisa and the crusaders who had recently arrived. There he found a huge treasure trove of Arabic translations of ancient Greek texts produced by the House of Wisdom – among them, works on geometry, astronomy, and chemistry. Adelard learned Arabic on his travels and mingled with Islamic scholars and wise men that aided him in his quest.

When he returned to Europe, Adelard became a respected luminary and inspiration to successive generations of adventurer-scholar-translators, producing about a dozen books in Latin packed with crucial learning. 

Among them was his works on Euclidean geometry, which became the cornerstone of the west’s sciences for hundreds of years. All subsequent scientific thinking, including logical deduction and work in architecture and astronomy in Europe was revitalized by his translation of Euclid’s Elements.

Adelard’s translation of al-Khwarizmi’s astronomical star tables, the Zinj al-Sindhind - which contained values for trigonometrical sines and tangents - had an equally profound impact, laying the foundation for the work of Copernicus later in the 16th century.

But he also made other, more philosophical contributions. In a number of works, including his Questions on Natural Science, Adelard employs his favorite literary device – an imaginary dialogue on controversial issues with an unnamed nephew who symbolizes rigid, linear, and traditional Christian thinking symbolic of the old order of knowledge which Adelard sought to overturn.

According to Ernest Scott in his book The People of the Secret, Adelard was also instrumental in one more key injection of knowledge into the West. While in Spain, the Englishman translated a text known as the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Sincerity – a compendium of knowledge produced in Basra 150 years earlier by a group of illuminates. Concerned with human development, Scott says one of the book’s original purposes may have been “to provide raw material on which natural science could develop in Europe” – implying prescience and specific intent on the part of its authors.

Adelard, the world’s first Arabist, had a profound grasp of Islamic learning and its utility for cultural renewal that would offer in place of Europe’s traditions of blind acceptance and submission to authority, the Arab learning techniques of experimentation, rational thought and personal experience. 

He helped the western world grasp and absorb pagan Greek and Hermetic cosmological knowledge - learning that would illuminate a line of spiritual and scientific geniuses that would in turn propel human civilization forward. That, plus the fact that he also lived in a time of cross-cultural conflict - not unlike our own - has done little to reverse his almost total obscurity in the cultures and lands which he so masterfully bridged.

The House of Wisdom and the Perfect Storm of Knowledge

Western civilization will often point to the intellectual advances of the ancient Greeks and Romans as the cornerstone of its own scientific achievements. But what remains under-acknowledged, if often unknown, is the pivotal role played by Islamic civilization in collating, developing and transmitting ancient learning to the West. 

Over a thousand years ago, the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad undertook one of the greatest initiatives to consolidate knowledge ever known. Those efforts focused around “Bayt al-Hikma” or the “House of Wisdom” - a centre for research, translation, and astronomical observation founded by the iconic Caliph Haroun al-Rashid in the 8th century A.D. His son and heir, the Caliph al-Ma’amun put the House of Wisdom’s operations into even higher gear. He gathered scholars from across the empire and charged them with the task of collecting every observation and shred of insight belonging all cultures within Baghdad’s reach.  

It was an undertaking made possible by a fortuitous confluence of developments. By the middle of the 7th century, conquering Muslim armies had fanned out from Arabia to some of the furthest corners of the known world – including India, Afghanistan, China, North Africa and Spain. The scientific and cultural knowledge of a patchwork of ethnic and religious communities were suddenly brought under one political umbrella. Jewish, Byzantine, Persian, Indian, and Egyptian traditions became simultaneously accessible, and started cross-fertilizing.

The availability of new paper technology from China made for the fast and efficient creation of books (in Europe, documents were still being written on parchment). It was only a matter of time before libraries came into being and knowledge began to spread.

This represented a golden opportunity for the forward-thinking minds of the Islamic empire. When Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, was constructed in 765, the decision was made to turn its domains into a scientific superpower. The House of Wisdom was duly born.

Following the example of the Library of Alexandria several centuries prior, the House of Wisdom placed an emphasis on collecting – and translating into Arabic – as many old manuscripts as it could get its hands on. A gargantuan effort comprising an army of scholars churned out new Arabic translations from old Hindu, Persian, Greek, Syriac and Roman works.

The agents of this operation went to extraordinary lengths to get their hands on any text that would add to the empire’s storehouse of knowledge. One account has it that a copy of Ptolemy’s astronomical masterpiece, Almagest, was one of the conditions of peace dictated by the Arabs to the Byzantines.

By the middle of the 11th century, the Arabs translated all major Greek works available in the areas of science and philosophy – as well as a great many others. 

The impact of this translation effort was manifold. First, the availability in Arabic of certain works - some of which had been “forgotten” or “lost” - allowed original Arab thinkers to make quantum leaps within their respective fields. Disciplines such as mathematics, astronomy, medicine, physics, chemistry, philosophy and psychology were advanced by scholars who had access to an unprecedented pool of information. 

Methodologies also evolved. The first universities emerged. Personal observation and experience became the hallmarks of medieval Arab science. And Arabic replaced Greek as the language of scientific inquiry.

This consolidated learning also provided the bedrock on which the most enlightened of all savants developed what was then known as the “Science of Man” – the knowledge and methods, passed along from teacher to pupil, on how to refine human consciousness and to connect up with ever-higher relationship patterns all the way up to experience of the Absolute. 

This entire storehouse of knowledge was deliberately transferred cross-culturally - westwards and north into Andalusia and Europe, paving the way for the Renaissance and those developments beyond.  

The passing of the civilizational baton came just in time. The House of Wisdom’s perfect storm of knowledge drew to an abrupt close when its libraries were destroyed by the Mongol armies who sacked Baghdad in 1258. It is said that for months the waters of the Tigris River were darkened by ink from all the library books that were thrown into the river. 

St. Francis and the East

St. Francis (1181-1226) is one of the most well-known figures in Christian history. He is most renowned for his love of animals and nature, and for having founded the Franciscan Order of Monks. Like St. Augustine before him, he was caught up in a wild and worldly life before coming to religion, and he is revered for the kindness and devotion that he demonstrated thereafter. What is less known about him is his relationship with the Eastern and the Muslim world which, at that time, represented a great rival to Christendom.
The story of St. Francis is yet another example of the interweaving of eastern and western currents during the Middle Ages, especially those moving from a vibrant Islamic civilization to a burgeoning Europe. This mixing and fertilization was especially evident in Italy and Spain, which directly abutted the Muslim world. Among these currents on the southern shore of the Mediterranean were the Sufi schools of human development.

St. Francis's connections with the East may have begun early in life. He was very interested in the Troubadours of Provence during his youth and may have been influenced by their way of life. They, in turn, were likely derived from Islamic culture (the etymology of the word 'troubadour' is disputed, but it is unusually close to the Arabic word 'tarab', which means a kind of transcendence through music). Later, he exhibited a keen interest in travelling to the Muslim world. He attempted to go east to Syria, but managed only to get to the Dalmatian coast of what is now Albania. He then tried to go west to Morocco, but ended up in Spain.
In 1219, St. Francis did finally succeed in an eastern journey when he reached the city of Damietta in Egypt, which was then besieged by Crusaders. St. Francis crossed from the Crusader to the Saracen side of the Nile to meet with the Sultan Malik el-Kamil. The traditional explanation is that he did so in order to convert him to Christianity, but failed in his effort. There are indications however that his purpose was different.

He was well received by the Sultan and permitted to preach in his lands. Upon returning to the Christian armies, St. Francis did his utmost to dissuade the Western knights from attacking the Muslims. He was ignored and the result was a Crusader defeat at the walls of Damietta. Since the fall of the Crusader kingdoms in the Middle East, only the Franciscans have been permitted to be the "Custodians of the Holy Land" on behalf of Christianity.

In subtle ways, he (and many others in his time) may have symbolized a broader current of human development than either the outward forms of Christianity and Islam can convey. He and the Sufi poet Rumi, for example, were contemporaries and share strong similarities in their poetry.

St. Francis even more closely paralleled the Sufi Najmuddin Kubra, the founder of an order called the 'Greater Brothers' (the Franciscans were also known as the 'Minor Brothers'). Sixty years before St. Francis's birth, Najmuddin was known for his love of animals, and for having tamed a fierce dog - as the Christian saint was later to do with a wolf.

Indeed, one of St. Francis's major contributions was to infuse a more democratic and "grass roots" movement into a very hierarchical church. He refused to become a priest, and returned the faith closer to the people, and away from institutions and authorities - a characteristic that has defined the Franciscans ever since.

Among his other many achievements, St. Francis, with his love for nature as the mirror of God and for animals as his "brothers and sisters", created the idea of the manger or nativity scene for Christmas, a symbol still very much alive today.

Like many other saints, St. Francis has been depicted in a variety of ways throughout history.

'The Baptized Sultan'

Most people are aware of the impact of Islamic Spain on the European history. The role of Andalusian philosophers, mystics, and translators on the development of the West cannot be underestimated. What is less known is the positive effects of Islam on Italy, and its role in the blossoming of the Renaissance there. Over the coming months, we'll examine some of the key examples of this influence, among other cross-cultural learning.

In these days of globalization and the confusion that comes with it, it may be useful to examine some past examples where cultural mixing and tolerance by leaders led to positive and unexpected developments. In the late 11th century in Sicily, Norman kings developed a royal dynasty. One of its first kings, Roger II, had a court that combined East and West, Christianity and Islam, merging the traditions of civilizations from all shores of the Mediterranean. His son, Frederick II, who was a polymath, went on to become an even greater cultural and political innovator, as well as Holy Roman Emperor.

Frederick's string of achievements were unusual: he established a written constitution that protected the rights of his subjects and founded the first secular university in Europe at Naples (Thomas Aquinas later studied there before going on to theological greatness in Paris). He also set up a refuge for Troubadours fleeing from southern France, and a Sicilian school of poetry which directly influenced the poetry of Dante.

Like the great Italian poet, Frederick's court used the local dialect for literature, rather than the traditional Latin. And despite Germanic and Norman roots, Frederick spoke Arabic fluently. His court scholars in Palermo translated the great works of Ibn Rushd and Aristotle, and it is even claimed that Arabic numerals came to Europe through his efforts. Frederick was so Arabized that he was referred to by some as "The Baptized Sultan".

This fantastic cross-mingling that he permitted helped re-awaken European culture. Significantly, Frederick II disbelieved anything that could not be proved by reason. Like Akhenaton, the great pharaoh, he insisted on shutting down charlatanism among physicians, and banned useless cures. He was also a profound religious iconoclast, and is said to have denounced Moses, Jesus and Mohammed as deceivers and fakes. For this and his closeness to Muslims in general, he earned himself a place in the sixth level of Dante's inferno - a heretic to forever burn in his tomb.

Frederick was also excommunicated four times, once by Pope Gregory IX for refusing to join the Crusades. When he finally travelled to the East, he managed to rapidly parlay access for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land in his discussions with the Sultan of Egypt. Indeed, he viewed the peoples of Islam as a rich and honorable society to be respected and learned from - possibly one of the secrets of his success, earning him the title 'The Wonder of the World' in his time.

The Emperor was described by the Damascene chronicler, Sibt Ibn Al Jawzi as having "eyes green like .. a serpent. He was covered with red hair… bald and myopic. Had he been a slave, he would not have fetched 200 dirhams at the market."

Frederick II is an example of the constructive coexistence of cultures at a time of great intolerance. His achievements speak to the possibility of success even as cultures blend and mix under duress. Through his eccentricities, his liberalism and healthy linkages with the Muslim world, he became a key door for the knowledge of the East to enter Europe and begin the process that we know as the Renaissance.

"We are better than Them"

"White smoke drifted up from a fog machine... A sound system played...anthems - deep male voices booming to a marching band's rhythms. The parents applauded wildly, the mothers ululating." (1)

We usually reserve the word ¨cult¨ for groups that commit mass suicide by drinking poison-laced purple cool-aid.

There is a view however that cult phenomena are much more pervasive in our lives. In the book 'Them and Us: Cult Thinking and the Terrorist Threat', Dr. Arthur Deikman, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, explains how cult thinking affects almost all of us. In the Middle East, where group belonging and identity remain supreme totems, the effect of hidden cult behaviour may be especially marked. Understanding its effects there may be critical to moving the region to new and more constructive paradigms.

Deikman points out that cult behaviour has three main characteristics:

• Dependence on a leader;
• Devaluing the outsider; and
• Avoiding dissent within the group.

Compliance to and within groups is a natural human phenomenon, necessary for survival. But group activity can vary greatly, from consensus building and open critical discussion to more cult-like closed systems that reject not only outsiders but also any intruding realities – ultimately much to the expense of the group and its survival.

Taboos and respect and fear for authority are strong features of many groups in the Middle East. From national identity, to religious systems to patriarchal families, respect for the leader, authority or ¨father figure¨ is unquestioned. The values of the society, especially religiously based ones, are taboos that do not sustain critical inquiry. Indeed, in this scenario, the ability to truly see an outsider at ¨eye level¨, i.e. equal, is simply not there.


In the Middle East, these matters are simply seen as "the way things have always been, and will always be". However, this is a method of group survival with potentially terrible consequences in an age of globalization and weapons of mass destruction.

Whether in Israel´s relations to its neighbours, its desperate desire to preserve its identity or assumptions among some about being somehow superior to others, or in Hizballah´s grip on its members, motivating them to higher purpose through sacrifice, even death, cult behaviour continues to grip the region, hidden in the veneer of tradition and references to longstanding cultures and civilizations.

"You are our leader... We are your men!" (2). Indeed, most seductive of all, according to Deikman, is when belonging to a group comes with a divine calling. It makes the mission of sublime importance and eases the ability to maintain the tightness of the group, calling on members to act blindly in its favour. By devaluing outsiders and feeling supreme, the group can provide members with a sense of mission and meaning.

The benefits of belonging to groups that act like cults are many: comfort, security, belonging, and, above all, a sense of higher purpose that the group and leader deliver, often at any cost. Indeed, it is when security and comfort meet higher purpose that the cult becomes an iron-clad contract between individual and group.

The cost of cults is massive. Deikman calls it ¨diminished realism¨. We see it every day in the Middle East:

• 91% of Israelis supported the bombing of Gaza even though the results are profoundly uncertain, even possibly counterproductive (e.g. a post-war strengthened Hamas), and other methods of approaching the problem may not have been exhausted. 

• Hamas is so sure of their ¨divine purpose¨ that there is little questioning of their goals or methods. All - rockets, bombs, terror – can be justified in the light of the group´s distant goals even if, again, the results are not there: Gaza remains under siege and in a profoundly abnormal condition despite Hamas's strategy. 

Certainly, the record of progress in the Middle East is testament to a state of ¨diminished realism¨. It may not be at all impossible for Israelis and Palestinians to come to terms if certain taboos are sacrificed, i.e. if cult behaviour is recognized and reduced.

Cult behaviour does not just apply to religious or Middle Eastern groups. It appears in a more subtle fashion in companies, organizations, and even between friends. The difficulty is that devaluing outsiders, avoiding dissent and blindly obeying leaders is often unrecognized for what it is. Furthermore, the reality is that breaking out of the group can be terrifying. Being thrust out, "excommunicated", a heretic in one's own "family" - however understood - can mean that the most basic instincts of life or death are triggered.

Yet, ironically, the word 'heretic' is derived from the Greek 'hairetikos', meaning 'able to choose'. Indeed, many in the Middle East deny the possibility of choice and point to the dance of fate in their desperate destiny, where in fact longstanding and unconscious acceptance of cult behaviour may be at play. After all, no one really wants to be a heretic.

Developing awareness of the problem is not easy, but it is possible. Recognition of one´s own cult tendencies may be the beginning.

"The musk oxen gather in a circle to defend against the wolves yet there may be only other oxen outside the circle."




(1) "Hezbollah Seeks to Marshall the Piety of the Young", New York Times, November 21, 2008
(2) Ibid.

All text and photography copyright (c) John Bell and John Zada