ABSTRACT
Many forces and personalities have shaped the modern Middle East over the last century; but amongst them, whilst Winston Churchill must rank as one of the primary architects, relatively little academic attention has examined his relationship with the Islamic world. His military and political careers often linked to matters concerning religious violence in the form of jihadists – those engaged in a holy war against non-believers – strategic calculations based around Islamic sentiments, and Moslem civil rights. Churchill reserved his most damning comments specifically for the Islamic Dervish population in Africa. In his A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume IV, published in 1958, the Dervish Mahdiyya are referred to as “restless fanatics” and “fanatical hordes”, which was in step with the thinking of orthodox Islamic authorities, or the Ulema, at the time. On 16 December 1896, whilst stationed in India as a junior officer, Churchill became an insatiable reader, particularly in history and philosophy.
