148. Karen Armstrongscholars, a library of modern European literature, a scientific
laboratory and a printing press with Arabic type. From the
start, the advanced culture of Europe, coming as it did with a
superbly efficient modern army, was experienced in the Mus-
lim Middle East as an assault. Napoleon's expedition to Egypt
and Syria failed. He had intended to attack British India from
the north, with the help of Russia. This gave Iran a wholly
new strategic importance, and for the next century Britain es-
tablished a base in the south of the country, while the Rus-
sians tried to get control of the north. Neither wanted to
make Iran a full colony or protectorate (until oil was discov-
ered there in the early twentieth century), but both powers
dominated the new Qajar dynasty, so that the shahs did not
dare to make a move without the support of at least one of
them. As in Bengal, both Britain and Russia promoted only
the technology that furthered their own interests and blocked
such inventions as the railway, which might have benefited
the Iranian people, in case it endangered their own strategic
positions.
The European powers colonized one Islamic country after
another. France occupied Algeria in 1830, and Britain Aden
nine years later. Tunisia was occupied in 1881, Egypt in 1882,
the Sudan in 1889 and Libya and Morocco in 1912. In 1915 the
Sykes-Picot agreement divided the territories of the moribund
Ottoman Empire (which had sided with Germany during the
First World War) between Britain and France in anticipation of
victory. After the war, Britain and France duly set up protec-
torates and mandates in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and
Transjordan. This was experienced as an outrage, since the
European powers had promised the Arab provinces of the
Ottoman Empire independence. In the Ottoman heartlands,
Mustafa Kemal, known as Atatiirk (1881-1938), was able to
keep the Europeans at bay and set up the independent state of
Turkey. Muslims in the Balkans, Russia and Central Asia be-